Nightingale
by GinnyRules
Summary: Brilliant student and prospective MI5 recruit Hermione Granger is inadvertently thrown back in time by a top-secret government experiment- Right into the lap of aspiring bio-engineer Tom Riddle, who she knows in her time as the man whose dangerous ambition will herald a nation's ruin... /Non-magic AU. /Something wicked this way comes.
1. i

**A/N:** A non-magic AU with time travel! What a terrible idea! You probably shouldn't read on... But while you're here, a few notes. I know most of you probably follow me for Dramione, so I apologize for jumping from ship to ship like this. Except, not really. Embrace the awesome! I don't know if this requires a trigger warning or not, but better safe than sorry... There will be fairly frequent mentions of illness (various types of cancer, mainly). Nothing graphic. I've put rather more planning into this fic than usual so I would love to know what you think. Okay. Let's go.

* * *

**_NIGHTINGALE_  
_by GR_  
**

000

_i - and do you think that love itself, living in such an ugly house, can prosper long?_

000

Hermione Granger had not a clue where she was.

Darkness enveloped her, thick and stifling, and she fumbled through her messenger bag for her mobile. The screen afforded her a little eerie, bluish illumination. Unfortunately this did nothing to alleviate her claustrophobia. She had found herself standing in a narrow room with steel walls and a high-vaulted ceiling, somewhat like being plunged into a crevice in a sheet of ice, and she had no idea how she had arrived there.

How very characteristic of her to let her imagination meander and get her into trouble.

Hermione liked things ordered. She liked them filed and cataloged and explained. Unfortunately, she was also possessed of a remarkable curiosity. At seventeen, she was set to graduate a semester early from Gryffindor College for Applied Sciences. Phrases like _Undocumented Test Scores_ and _Ninety-Eighth Percentile Intelligence _had become commonplace in her transcripts, so much so that, over the summer, MI5 had come recruiting. Her parents had balked at first, but she had talked them down with a systematic determination that seemed to have frightened them a little. There was simply _no chance_ of her letting an opportunity like this slip through her fingers. She had been nursing a secret dream of making a difference in domestic policy for quite some time—some of the country's counter-intelligence measures were horrendously outdated, she often found herself railing, not that any of her friends actually cared about such things—and at last she could see her ambition materializing.

That was how she had found herself on a tour of a covert government facility over spring holiday, while her best friends were probably off at the water park, or else smoking in an alleyway somewhere. She had never been able to exert much of a good influence over Harry and Ron, both of whom skated through their schoolwork and got along on sports scholarships and were generally, utterly unlike her.

She could have used a bit of Harry's fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants attitude just about now.

About halfway through the tour Hermione had spotted an unmarked doorway and had immediately raised her hand.

"Please, sir," she had said to the inscrutable, black-clad tour guide with the unnecessary sunglasses (They were indoors, for heaven's sake). "What goes on through there?"

"Weaponized bioengineering," the guide had replied without inflection, and Hermione's stomach had turned over. Of course, he would have no compunctions about telling this to an uninitiated visitor; he probably thought she could not understand most of what he was saying and, moreover, she had signed a non-disclosure agreement before entering the facility.

"Isn't that, er, contrary to the Geneva convention?" Hermione had ventured, wondering if she was pushing her luck.

"Exploratory studies only, no practical applications."

Out of nowhere she had thought, _He's lying_. Hermione was good at reading people. Her mother sometimes affectionately called her a "little Seer" when she came home to find a spotlessly clean house, because Hermione had sensed, somehow, that her day had been rocky. But perhaps she was overreacting. She had no real reason to suspect the guide of flat out falsehoods.

"Research is being undertaken to gain ground on the activities of Walpurgis Incorporated," the guide had gone on as the other tour members glazed over or glanced at their watches. But Hermione had frozen with dread.

_Walpurgis Incorporated_. The name was synonymous with all things nefarious in Hermione's book. Placing patents on living genetic material, dragging small-time farmers and agriculturalists into court, flooding the market with toxic chemical agents... Hermione closed her eyes for a moment, willing away the memories of the boy in her fourth year at school, Cedric, who had died of a rare form of cancer due to overexposure to Tri-Wheat Gro, the Walpurgis crop purging agent.

The guide had still been speaking. "It is a matter of some debate whether the health serums being developed by Walpurgis Inc. are a danger to the public. We wish to maintain a healthy awareness of all possibilities."

That had sounded reasonable enough. Hermione had wished she could see his eyes. Her Headmaster at Gryffindor College, Albus Dumbledore, had inadvertently taught her the power of holding someone's gaze over the years. As the tour had continued round the corner, the guide had hung back for a moment and pushed his sunglasses down his nose to look at her closely. And Hermione had understood why he wore them: while his right eye was intact, the skin around his left was a gruesome, criss-crossing mass of scar tissue, at the center of which rested a startlingly large glass eye with a bright blue, artificial iris that stared off at an odd angle.

"'Round here you might want to remember a few things," he had told her in a quick rumble. "Namely, not to ask questions you know full well you shouldn't be asking. Lots of people watching these halls. Constant vigilance from the eyes in the sky, so to speak. Hmm?" He had nodded at the blinking red light on a camera mounted on the ceiling nearby, then swept away to catch up to the group.

He could hardly have done anything that would have given Hermione more cause to dig deeper.

A younger version of herself would never have done it, but unluckily, her many years spent in Harry and Ron's company had dulled her rule-abiding instincts and left her with a bit of a reckless mentality. So when an odd, mechanical whirring noise had sounded from behind the unmarked door, she had thought, _Just one look won't hurt._

The door had not even been locked, for heaven's sake.

But then the passageways behind the unmarked door had been much more torturous than she had anticipated, and she had managed, idiotically, to get herself lost.

Could she try calling the front desk to send someone to get her? No. Surely her chances at being hired on would be ruined. Worse yet, she might actually face trespassing charges. She would have to wile her way out of this situation, no matter what.

Cloaking herself in determination, Hermione inched along the wall until she reached yet another unmarked door. On the other side she found, to her astonishment, a surgically clean white room the size of a small cathedral, lit by rows upon rows of harsh, naked fluorescent bulbs. At the far end stood two rows of upright steel beams from which rose a deep, unsettling sort of hum.

Unable to help herself, Hermione approached the contraption, fascinated. A small vertical fissure ran the length of each metal beam, almost too narrow to be seen by the naked eye. Between the twin rows stood a small white booth with an automatic door. When Hermione approached it, the doors slid open at once and she saw that the inside was tinted fiberglass. Behind the booth, on the wall opposite, an old-fashioned lift stood silent and empty with a directory printed on a plaque on the side.

_LEVEL 3 – Electro-Cranial Stimulation Testing Facility_

_LEVEL 2 – Management_

_LEVEL 1 – Nightingale Project_

_SUB-BASEMENT – Particle Accelerator_

Hermione's eyes widened. By all accounts MI5 did not even _have_ a particle accelerator. Was this all some sort of elaborate joke? Had she wandered into a highly realistic nightmare?

Unless she was mistaken, she was currently on Level One. Hermione squinted at the words _Nightingale Project_, frowning. She could not fathom what that might mean.

A sharp clicking sound interrupted her reflections and she very nearly jumped out of her skin as she saw the doorknob on the door to the white room turn slowly. _This could not be happening_. There was nothing for it; she would have to hide inside the booth. Cursing herself, she slipped past the automatic doors and prayed that they would close behind her. Her prayers were answered at precisely the same moment as what sounded like a large group of visitors stepped inside the room. Thankfully, she could still hear them through the gap in the doors, faintly.

"... here we have Project Nightingale," said the guide of what was decidedly a very different tour from the one Hermione had taken. "So named for the musical tone emitted by the device while in action—an entirely coincidental side-effect."

"And it has been tested—?"

"We have not, of course, progressed to human testing. Nor is there any current plan to do so. However we are relying here on the principles of quantum entanglement. Stebbins, perhaps you'd like to join me in laying out the theory here..."

"Ah, yes. Er, yes, well. Quantum entanglement. Two particles sharing in exactly the same properties, the same exact state, no matter their location in space or time. By this logic one could entangle the particles of a certain device, then split them and impact some effect on the one half that would resonate upon the other, even through—through different points in time. In theory."

Hermione's jaw dropped. Were they really speaking of _time travel?_ She had never heard anything so absurd in her life.

"One need hardly enumerate the possibilities this procedure would open up," the guide resumed. "Were communication with future time periods possible, we could potentially learn of viral outbreaks, wars, acts of terrorism, before they ever took place."

There was a flurry of incredulous muttering.

"But surely you've taken into account the obvious paradox?"

"Ah, indeed. However Dr. Broderick Bode on Level Two has isolated a number of variables he believes may mitigate the paradox effect... I've been cleared to offer a short demonstration before we move along. I must warn that if any of you have a weak constitution you may want to leave. Even for a, shall we say, 'dry run,' the effect is rather overwhelming. The energy will interfere with any other electronic device you may have on your person—thus the old clunker of a lift you see there."

Shoes clattered severally against the stone floor and Hermione's nails dug into her palms. What did they mean, _demonstration?_ Did they really think they were about to start up a time machine in the middle of the building? Hermione wondered whether she ought to burst out of the booth and cut her losses, but decided against it. There was simply no way whatsoever that such technology could exist. Everything she had ever read—a considerable amount by any definition—confirmed it.

Still, whatever was about to happen could potentially harm her.

But it was too late. Already the guide was busying himself over what sounded like a control panel, and Hermione heard the automatic doors seal themselves shut. There was no getting out now. A moment later the hum emanating from the steel bars had intensified a hundredfold to a chilling sort of melodious blare, and Hermione was well and truly scared.

"Now, in the distant future when a thorough mastery of the elements is achieved," yelled the guide over the thrum, "the passenger would step inside that booth there with the communication device. Passengers would likely be convicts on death row, as we've no way of knowing the effects of temporal displacement on the human body. And in the event that the subject survived, they would in any case never be able to return. This journey is a one way ticket. We're going to set this one back as far as the meter goes—about sixty-five years—as the forward setting is not yet operational."

Abandoning all pretense, Hermione began to bang at the doors with both fists, yelling "Stop! There's someone in here! _Stop!_" But no one heard her.

"Notice the wave-form patterns of the infrared on the screen here," she heard the guide say before the whine of the steel bars drowned out his voice entirely.

All at once Hermione became conscious of a peculiar sort of tingling in her extremities, as though her very marrow were squirming and shifting around. It seemed that every hair on her body was standing on end and her teeth were chattering, though she was not cold. She was finding it increasingly difficult to catch her breath, and her eyes were watering.

_It's not real_, she told herself firmly, over and over. _Time travel is science fiction. At worst I might get some mild form of radiation poisoning. Nothing incurable. These walls are thick. It's not real._

Was it possible for every bone in a person's body to liquefy and turn to scorching, boiling mercury at once? Was it possible for the grey matter in her brain to dissipate and seep through her eye sockets? Was it possible for her very consciousness to tear itself free from the anchor of the world as she knew it and be set adrift upon an ocean of shimmering vapor that ate away at the fabric of reality? Hermione was not aware that she was screaming, or that she even had a mouth with which to scream. She was aware of nothing but the raging, stampeding pain that tore her apart from root to stem. Then even the pain swirled to black, empty, insipid nothingness, and she was gone.

000

"Oi, Tom!"

A weedy boy with a mournful, twisted face scrambled through the courtyard wearing a sickeningly satisfied grin, like a dog relishing to drop some small creature's carcass at its master's feet.

"Tom! D'you know they've just brought someone in to Dippet's office? Girl, about our age, bleeding all over the place. I spoke to the Prefect on patrol, he said she came wandering in yelling and screaming. Bleeding out her _ears_, he said. Nobody even saw her enter the grounds."

Tom Riddle felt the faint stirrings of genuine interest and turned to give Tony Dolohov his full attention.

"Did Dippet ask for me?" he said.

Dolohov's face fell. "Er... dunno. I didn't hear—but I suppose you ought to go. Head Boy and all."

Tom was sorely tempted to fasten his hands around Dolohov's throat and teach him a thing or two about dictating what he _ought to do_, but the lure of information was strong. A bloodied student—a female one, at that—wandering the school at night was not acceptable. Far from being concerned for the girl's well-being, Tom's mind was preoccupied with the notion that he himself had not ordered this attack. Which meant that someone else had done so instead.

Not on his watch.

He left Dolohov behind without another word and strode up the marble steps to the front doors of Slytherin Preparatory College. Once inside the entrance hall he unhooked an oil lamp from the wall and let his feet carry him along the familiar path to the Headmaster's office. He ran into Dippet and the Deputy Head, doddering old Galatea Merrythought, just outside the office doors.

"Ah Tom!" exclaimed Dippet warmly. "Good, you've heard. I was just about to send for you. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to have you come along to the Infirmary. If the girl wakes up it might put her at ease to have someone her own age in the vicinity."

"Who is the victim?" Tom asked quietly, assuming an appropriately somber expression.

"That's just the thing, it isn't a student! Not one from Hufflepuff Preparatory next door, in any case. No one seems to be able to identify her, and she isn't answering questions."

"What happened to her?"

The Headmaster lowered his voice as they strode past the dormitories on their way to the Infirmary. "She is incoherent. Ranting and raving about some sort of tour guide and quantoid entanglement, whatever that means. She was in rather bad shape. Covered in blood, teeth chattering, not much life behind her eyes I'm afraid. I wouldn't be surprised if the poor thing were a bit touched in the head."

Tom contained his irritation at Dippet's grandfatherly concern for what was probably some lunatic idiot who was about to ruin his night, and offered a look of deepest dismay.

"I certainly hope whoever's responsible for her state is caught," he said earnestly. And oh, he did. He would ensure that he caught the guilty parties personally, in fact.

"That they certainly will be," said Dippet, giving him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

They turned into the Infirmary and gathered around the single occupied bed. A smallish, plain enough looking girl lay curled on her side beneath twisted sheets, her arms and legs twitching restlessly every now and again. Her hair was a veritable rat's nest, and trickles of dried blood ran down her neck from her ears. What kind of imbecile would attack a girl this defenseless and botch the job?

Mistaking Tom's disgust for concern, Dippet lowered his voice and confided, "She appears to have come out of nowhere. We've been unable to track down any family whatsoever."

The conspiring look he offered made Tom clench his jaw. _No family_... As if he and the girl would have something to talk about.

"Maybe I ought to stay with her for the night, sir?" Tom suggested smoothly. "We wouldn't want her in here alone in case her attackers came back..."

"Indeed? Yes, yes, that would be most—Yes, quite." Dippet looked immensely relieved that he would not have to fulfill this duty himself. "We'll be having the grounds patrolled, of course. Be sure to send for me should you need anything."

When Dippet had left, Tom settled into a wooden chair by the foot of the girl's bed and watched her for some time. The wan moonlight filtering through the gauzy curtains hung over her window cast shadows across her face at sharp angles, so that she looked aged beyond her years. But in fact, everything about the girl spoke of weariness. There were pronounced dark circles under her eyes and her nails were chewed ragged.

And her hair... There was a lock of it, just near her temple, that was shot through with pure white. Lord knew what kind of trauma could have caused that. Was it possible she was a war refugee just come out of hiding? He had heard tell of certain groups, unaware of the victory of the Allied forces, remaining in bunkers for months into peacetime. Only that did not quite jibe with Dippet's account of events. The girl had been bleeding and shouting that very night. Someone must have attacked her.

Action was always the best recourse. Stretching out leisurely in the chair, Tom pulled a plain black, leather-bound journal from an inner pocket of his coat and flipped it open. Inside, the pages had been cut away to create a rectangular indentation large enough to fit a thin, glossy electronic device.

Tom pressed a button and the device blinked to life, revealing a blank white screen with a cursor waiting in the top left corner. Without delay Tom began to dictate a message to the device in a low voice, using a method of communication he knew none of the dunces at this school, or even any of the faculty, would be able to understand if he were ever intercepted.

_01001101011001010110010101110100001000000110111101 10111000100000010001100111001001101001011001000110 00010111100100100000011000010111010000100000011101 00011010000110010100100000011101010111001101110101 01100001011011000010000001110000011011000110000101 1000110110010100101110..._

It was not until he had sent off the communication and waited for a response—a rapid confirmation, satisfactory—that he glanced up to see that the girl was awake. And she was watching him.

She closed her eyes as soon as he met her gaze, but Tom was not about to let her play coy. He snapped his journal shut, stowed it away, and shifted his chair closer.

"Good evening."

To his mild relief, she did not prolong the charade. She squinted at him from beneath her lashes and spoke in a ruined, tremulous voice that seemed, nevertheless, to carry some sharpness.

"Where am I?"

"Slytherin Preparatory College, near twenty miles outside Manchester."

She seemed to draw some comfort from his words. Her eyes bore into his in a clear-sighted way that reminded him uncomfortably of Dumbledore, the Head Boy of some three years ago, who had never quite seemed to trust him. Tom saw none of the mental incapacity Dippet had described.

"You must have had some shock," he observed.

"I thought I had. I thought—But you were speaking in Binary just now. That must mean..." A faint frown creased her brow. Tom kept his face impassive, but inside he was seething. How had she recognized Binary so easily—she, a _girl?_

"Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable, Miss—?"

"Granger. Hermione Granger." She pursed her lips and seemed to lose herself in thought for a moment. "I usually like to read the morning paper to start my day, but I'm afraid I haven't gotten the chance..."

Curious habit. Tom looked around the Infirmary and spotted a copy of the _London Gazette_, which he handed to her. Hermione Granger's eyes darted immediately to the date atop the headline, and she ceased to breathe.

Had she lost several days in her delirium? This seemed the most logical explanation, yet there came to Tom, unbidden, another possibility. A tantalizing one.

No, surely not. He would need much more to go on than some frightened girlish quirks to ascertain _that_. He would need to watch her carefully.

"This is... _today's_ paper?" she asked shakily, flipping through the pages with quick, jagged movements like an automaton.

_What an odd question, Hermione Granger._

Tom nodded.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nose, once, twice, three times. At last she seemed to come to some momentous internal conclusion.

"I think I need to speak to someone in charge," she said, swinging her legs off the side of the bed and wincing. "A Professor or a Headmaster."

Tom quirked an eyebrow. She was wearing a pair of trousers (In itself an anomaly he had thought reserved for the so-called feminists his classmates found such enjoyment in disparaging) cut from unusually form-fitting fabric. He was hardly inclined to be disheveled by a little provocative attire, but the sight of it on this sharp-eyed girl drew him up short.

"Can you walk?" Tom inquired. "I can send for the Headmaster to come to you—"

"No, no, I'll be fine," she interrupted impatiently, scrubbing at the blood on her neck with her sleeves. She staggered a little as she stood, and Tom seized her shoulder to steady her. She flashed him a small, thankful smile and seemed to fully take him in for the first time. Her eyes took on the old, familiar slant he had seen so many times, the one that was one part discomfort, two parts admiration.

Too easy by half.

He kept his arm out at mid-level for her to cling to as he led her out of the Infirmary into the grounds. When they arrived at the front doors the crisp January air raised goose bumps on his skin, and Tom realized that Granger had on only a thin cotton blouse. He shrugged off his coat and placed it around her shoulders over her feeble protests.

"Tom?"

Dolohov had returned, accompanied by Barty Crouch, Alan Black, and Abraxas Malfoy. The lot of them ogled Granger unabashedly until Tom cleared his throat pointedly.

"We have a guest," he said. His voice carried without effort. "Miss Granger, Tony, Barty, Alan, and Abraxas. Where's Dippet?" he added, scanning the darkened grounds.

"By the lake," answered Abraxas.

Tom swept down towards the lake with a meaningful look over his shoulder at Abraxas. _Keep the others in check_. The boys tended to get unruly the first week of term back, and Tom did not want to have his attention diverted.

"Professor?" Granger asked, striding up to Dippet and offering a handshake rather than the customary curtsy. Her brazenness was almost amusing.

Dippet looked quite bewildered. "My stars! Tom—What an unexpected—Well, my dear girl, we are very glad to see you up and well."

"Sir, I'm very grateful for your hospitality," said Granger, shaking his hand and speaking very fast. "My name is Hermione Granger. I'm afraid I got some distressing news this afternoon that left me in a pretty bad state. I hope you'll forgive my behavior."

"Think nothing of it, dear girl, of course! I can only imagine what you must have been through... Distressing news, you say?"

"The last of the war casualty lists came in. I've lost my family."

Granger spoke it baldly, without inflection. Tom watched her, feeling a little fascinated, which in itself was unusual. Good Lord, had the quality of education at this school fallen so low? There was nothing especially interesting about the girl. Except that he could tell she was lying.

She was not very good at it. Her eyes darted to and fro and she pressed her lips tightly together as if to avoid any small quirk that might give her away. Still, it was a bold lie. Dippet's face fell in a comical expression of horror.

"Good heavens! But—My dear girl, how terrible... Is there anything we can possibly do to help?"

"I'd like a place at your school."

Tom's eyes snapped to hers, and he was half convinced he had heard wrong. But she went on, "I've no place to go now, you see. Nothing to call my own. I can promise I would work as hard as anyone."

Dippet looked to Tom, who shrugged.

"Well," the Headmaster hedged, "yes, indeed. Yes, I shall speak to Headmistress Umbridge over at Hufflepuff Girls' Preparatory School about admitting you."

But Granger shook her head. "No, I don't want to go learn how to cook and sew. I mean a place at _your_ school, sir."

There was stark determination in her gaze. All the more pity when Dippet let out an incredulous laugh, covering his mouth with his hands a moment too late. Granger looked deeply affronted.

"My apologies, Miss Granger, but Slytherin College is a school for boys."

"But—"

"Girls are not admitted, you see, it simply isn't done."

"But—"

"Miss Granger, our students are required to become fluent in Latin and Greek, to debate Philosophy and Theology, to learn the most contemporary evolutionary theories..."

"Give me an aptitude test," Granger demanded abruptly.

"I—"

"Give me the standard test of admission. If I get anything less than an excellent score I'll do whatever you ask from thereon out. But if I match the highest score you've ever gotten, I get a place at your College."

There was boldness, and there was plain foolhardiness. Tom knew for a fact that the highest scores this school had ever seen were his own. There was not a chance in hell Granger would match them. A shame; she was clearly not as clever as he had thought.

"I must say—Most unusual—" Dippet spluttered to himself. But he had always been a weak soul, and in the face of Granger's insistence he capitulated. "Yes, very well," he said indulgently, speaking in a soothing tone one might use with a belligerent toddler. "Tom, wake Professor Merrythought, would you? Let's get Miss Granger here a test. I'd like this over with so that we can report the situation to the proper authorities by morning."

Tom turned on his heel without a word and walked swiftly to Merrythought's quarters. Twenty minutes later found the Deputy Head, the Headmaster, and Tom all gathered in the Head's office while Granger sat behind a locked door with the testing administrator.

Tom watched the needles of Dippet's grandfather clock inch their way along, marking off segments of the night, and slowly smoked cigarette after cigarette. Dippet kept up a steady stream of muttered comments to the effect that there was nothing to worry about, the aptitudes required to pass the test would be well beyond a frightened girl's knowledge. But Tom was not so sure.

He had seen behavior like hers once before.

A little past two in the morning, Granger emerged from the testing room, her face unreadable. The administrator who followed behind her was shaking his head.

"She can't have cheated," he was saying again and again. "Can't have cheated. This is the new round of tests. Just finished drawing them up this afternoon. Not possible."

"One hundred and three out of a hundred," said Granger. "I'm told that matches the highest score you've gotten in the last decade."

A haze of white-hot rage clouded Tom's vision and for a moment he struggled to school his expression into one of calm amusement. Match _his_ scores? There was no way. She _must_ have cheated.

Dippet's mouth opened and closed stupidly.

"I believe we had an agreement, Headmaster?"

At last Dippet managed to get a grip on himself, and held out his hand to shake Granger's.

"We'll have to speak to Headmistress Umbridge about getting you lodgings across the lake, of course," he said shakily. "But with scores like those you'll have no shortage of scholarship money to pay your room and board."

She ought to have been overjoyed. Slytherin College had never, in its grand tradition of several hundred years, admitted a female student before. Instead she merely gave a curt nod.

"Can I ask, sir?" she said. "Was anything found on my person when I arrived? A messenger bag, maybe?"

Dippet's eyes dropped for just a second before he answered.

"No, I'm afraid not," he said.

_Lies_. Tom would have to find that messenger bag, somehow.

Dippet smiled. It made him look rather like he had a bad stomach ache.

"Welcome to Slytherin College, Miss Granger."

000

Hermione followed the edge of the woods, skirting the lake that separated one campus from another until she arrived at the front gates of Hufflepuff School for Girls. The place was a surreal conglomeration of the medieval and the academic. She observed the barren hedgerows, the stained glass windows, the high crenelated stone walls, and felt panic clutch at her heart once again.

Time travel. She'd had all night to ponder, to deny, to rage and despair, after she had passed Slytherin College's ridiculously outdated admissions test. She had yet to come to terms with what she was living. All that kept her going was a deep-seated survival instinct she had not know she possessed. Unconsciously, it seemed she knew that she had to keep moving, keep swimming against the current with all her might, or the accursed rapids of time would overtake her and she would drown.

She had no luggage, no money, nothing to her name. Hermione entered the fortress-like school a veritable orphan bereft of even the slightest sense of belonging. Her clothes were horrendously out of place, and she tugged self-consciously at the synthetic fabric of her collar as a tall, slender girl in a pressed school uniform came striding up to her, beaming brightly.

"Hermione Granger, yes?" The girl shook Hermione's hand vigorously. "I'm Gemma Farley. Head girl, and your guide. We're so happy to have you here. We haven't had a new boarder in ages. The girls can't wait to meet you."

"How—How many—?"

Gemma laughed kindly. "Not too many in the eldest girls' corridor, don't worry. Heaven's, you don't have any luggage, do you? Of course not. Well, war orphans are all too common around here these days. You'll feel right at home soon enough. Come on, this way."

The Head girl kept up a constant stream of chatter as she led Hermione up a set of oak steps to a narrow corridor lined with arched ivory doorways. She had soft, earnest features that lent themselves naturally to an inclination of trust. Hermione found herself relaxing fraction by fraction. She listened with one ear to the history of Helga Hufflepuff, the wife of a celebrated chemist who had committed herself to a nunnery after her husband's early death, and gotten a school named after her for her troubles. She also strove to memorize every turn and staircase. When she got back home, never again would she be caught wandering off without a concrete idea of where she was going.

When she got home...

_I will_, she told herself firmly. _No two ways about it. I have to._

At last Gemma gestured to a quaint little room on the last left of the second floor corridor, explaining that Professor Umbridge had been sure to arrange everything just so for Hermione's comfort. The room was painted a shocking pink that was an assault on the senses, and everywhere Hermione looked she saw doilies resting on lace tablecloths. She tried not to wrinkle her nose.

"Is it true Riddle found you?" Gemma asked suddenly, her voice dropping to a hush.

"Er..."

"The Head boy? Everyone's saying he rescued you or something, and brought you in. And that he spent the night in the Infirmary with you. Is it true?"

"No." Hermione shook her head, trying to remember why the name Riddle sounded so familiar. Her mind had gone topsy-turvy since she'd arrived here. "I mean, he did visit me in the Infirmary, but it was a Prefect who found me. Lestrange, I think."

Gemma flushed pink but made no comment. Hermione thought it best not to press the issue. Her curiosity had, at long last, reached its limit.

A strident noise from the doorway distracted her, and she caught a brief glimpse of a whole gaggle of uniformed girls before she was surrounded by a press of squealing girlishness.

"So this is our new dorm mate!"

"God in heaven, what is she wearing?"

"Why is her hair like that?"

"We've heard all about Riddle! We want details!"

"And an orphan, too, how positively tragic!"

"What is she _wearing?_"

Laughing, Gemma ushered the group back a little to allow Hermione room to breathe.

"As you can see, we've got an enthusiastic group," she said. "Romilda, that's enough! Do you want to tear the poor girl's hair from her skull?"

The girl named Romilda grinned and gave Hermione a rather condescending wink.

"We've brought your uniforms up for you," said another, a short, stocky girl with auburn hair and fair skin. "I'm Amelia Bones. And this is Mary Edgecomb and Katie Bell." She pointed out a girl with copious curly hair, and her friend, who flashed a brilliant, perfect smile.

"Any relation to Alexander Graham?" Hermione asked Katie Bell in a feeble attempt at humor.

"My grandfather," the girl replied brightly, and Hermione felt faint.

"_So?_" Romilda with the prominent chin and loud voice burst out. Hermione looked at her uncomprehendingly.

"It's not true about Riddle," Gemma supplied.

There was a collective sigh of regret from the girls. Hermione could not exactly say she did not understand. The polite, helpful, dark haired Head boy who had led her to Dippet had been the handsomest person she had ever met in real life, by a wide margin. She ought to have been a little more appreciative of his attentions, but she had been so preoccupied. And then, bizarrely, there was the fact that she had distinctly heard him speaking to himself in Binary code. She could not begin to fathom what that might be about.

Well, she would get the chance to thank him properly when they attended classes together.

"Do you think they'll come tonight?" Amelia Bones asked excitedly, and the others burst into fresh peals of giggling. Hermione hoped this was not a common occurrence.

"Must be. It's the first weekend this term. They always visit 'round this time," Gemma replied.

"Who?"

Her dorm mates exchanged glances, appearing to engage in some form of silent communication.

"Promise not to tell?" asked Katie Bell.

"Of course." Hermione's first instinct was to refuse to promise any such thing—she had always prided herself in strict adherence to the rules, after all—but she had more than enough on her plate without worrying about anyone else's transgressions at the moment.

"Well, the boys from Slytherin sneak 'round the lake after hours to pay us a visit sometimes. The younger years don't know, and we'd like to keep it that way. Umbridge would blow her top if she ever found out. It's not _proper behavior for budding young ladies._"

The more Hermione heard about this Umbridge character, the more she doubted her competency to run a school.

"You'll see later tonight," said Gemma. "Come on, we'll let you change into your uniform before you come down to join us for dinner." Before closing the door behind herself and the others, however, she poked her head back into the room and added. "I know it must be a lot to take in right now, but you'll get used to it. Umbridge tells me you've been accepted into Slytherin College. You must be absolutely brilliant. I've never heard of them taking a girl before. I'm sure you'll do well."

A lot to take in. She didn't know the half of it. Hermione smiled gratefully at Gemma before allowing her knees to give way beneath her and sitting down brusquely on her bed. Even the quilt was pink. She sighed.

While the majority of her consciousness had collapsed into a shuddering heap after her leap through time, her analytical mind had seized on a number of crucial points which she now rallied about her like life rafts in a storm.

One, that despite her hysteria in the wake of the tremendous, mind-bending pain of time travel, she had been quite certain that her messenger bag had come with her. If Dippet had found it and sorted through it, and spotted her mobile and laptop computer, it was more than likely he had stowed these away somewhere, either for his own purposes or to turn over to the authorities. She had to get the bag back.

Two, that time travel was not meant to be a reality. Science was not supposed to have even approached the threshold of that sort of endeavor, let alone mastered it. The government must have been working at it for much longer than anyone had suspected, perhaps even as far back as the year 1946, where she currently found herself. Which meant that if she was going to find a way home, locating the individuals involved in this research was a valid starting point. And what better place was there to undertake her search than an elite school housing some of the brightest young minds in the country? Hermione had read about Slytherin College in her time, and she knew that its founder, Salazar Slytherin, had been one of the most celebrate scientists of the sixteenth century. Surely a few of the faculty members would be able to offer her some assistance.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly of all, she realized that she had to avoid crossing paths with anyone involved with her own future life at all costs. She had no idea what sort of cataclysm she might unleash if she were to inadvertently prevent her own birth, or some such absurd storybook scenario. She was probably the only human being ever to have traveled in time, and she did not care to test the laws of physics any further than that.

A thought strayed idly into her mind: she wondered whether the handsome Head boy with the striking black eyes might be able to help her in the beginnings of her research. The examiner had told her that his scores had been the ones she had matched. He was clearly a brilliant, dedicated student. Yes, she would seek him out. There was no need to tell him, or indeed anyone, exactly what she was doing, but she could use a little assistance.

Hermione's plans weighed heavily on her at dinner, and she stared into space with her fork hanging limply an inch from her mouth through much of Romilda and Katie's excitable chatter about the progress of their sewing patterns, or whatever inane subject they had taken on. The food was good, if a little bland, and the dining hall was spacious enough to comfortably fit the eight dozen or so girls who comprised the student body. Here, too, the walls were tinted a sickeningly bright pink. After she missed her mouth with her fork for the fifth time, Hermione's eyes fell upon a squat woman with a flabby face seated at the Professors' table, who was watching her keenly from the end of the hall. The calculating expression on her rather toad-like features was at odds with the excessively frilly pinkness of her attire, and Hermione knew at once that this must be the Headmistress. Hoping to make a good impression, she smiled and nodded politely in the woman's direction. Umbridge continued to watch her intently for a time before turning away, and Hermione felt her skin crawl uncomfortably.

"Hermione? _Hermione!_"

"Sorry?"

Romilda was staring at her expectantly.

"I asked about those odd clothes you were wearing when you arrived. I asked about _six _times!"

"Cut her some slack, Milly, she's probably daydreaming about Riddle," Gemma teased, winking. "Didn't you say he visited you in the Infirmary, Hermione?"

"Er, yes," Hermione said, and left it at that. The last thing she needed was for rumors to begin circulating that she was somehow involved with the Head boy.

"I'd break both my legs if he'd visit _me_ in the Infirmary," said Amelia Bones dreamily.

"Maybe he'll come along with the rest of them tonight," said Katie.

"He doesn't usually," Mary Edgecomb piped in.

"Yes, but he might. You never know."

"Doesn't the Head boy hang around with the other students?" Hermione asked, trying to enter the flow of conversation so as to appear natural.

"Oh he does," said Gemma. "But Riddle's a bit... different. You'll see tonight."

As it transpired, Gemma was right. The Slytherin boys came through the garden beneath the girls' windows after lights out at eleven o'clock, and Hermione's dorm mates showed her how to tie sheets together to climb down the outside wall until she reached the ground. Riddle was among the company. Hermione could not shake the feeling that his name sounded incredibly familiar, but every time she stole a glance at him she found her rational mind eroded a little. He had such a guarded mien, and whenever he caught her looking and offered her a deferential smile she had to fight down a hysterical burst of laughter.

The boys led them to a snowy arbor in a secluded part of the gardens, cigarettes hanging from their lips, gallantly offering their coats as Romilda and Katie made a show of shivering in the cold. The four boys Riddle had introduced Hermione to were present, as well as another, tall boy with a haughty face who Gemma pointed out rather giddily as Charles Lestrange. Hermione recognized the Prefect she had been too addled to properly meet when she had first arrived, the one who had dragged her to Dippet. She had no desire whatsoever to be out of bounds so late when classes were set to start in the morning, and wanted nothing more than to collapse onto a soft pillow. But she wanted even more to blend in, to avoid setting herself apart from the masses. It would not do to start arousing suspicion of any kind. So Hermione leaned against a gnarled old poplar and watched as the girls refused to drink the beer the boys had brought, only to relent moments later with much coquettish simpering.

"Won't you have any, Hermione?" Katie Bell called merrily. A faint pink flush was beginning to creep up her cheeks.

Hermione shook her head at once, eliciting raucous laughter from the boys.

"Hermione's a model student," Gemma announced. "We'll be lucky to have her to help us with our Latin and Calligraphy, I bet, even if she's come to us for some not so nice reasons."

"Oh, that's right, we never asked," Romilda interjected. "What _did_ your family do in the war, Hermione?"

"Brother in the 29th infantry," Riddle spoke up unexpectedly before Hermione could answer. "Father was a General under Churchill in the Blitz. Purple heart and medal of honor."

"Oh my God," said Amelia Bones sympathetically.

Hermione gazed at Riddle and said nothing. It was a blatant lie; he knew nothing about her family. She had been about to declare offhandedly that she despised the concept of war as a whole, but now felt it might be better to keep silent. Many of the students, male and female, were nodding in appreciation.

"Nice to see you come from a decent family," said Gemma in a fierce tone that surprised Hermione. "I don't know how some people whose parents didn't even fight can hold up their heads in public anymore, you know? Healthy men claiming heart conditions and the like, or _draft dodgers_. If you ask me, they shouldn't even let those families through the door."

"Hear, hear," said Barty Crouch and Alan Black in unison.

Riddle gave Hermione a look that said plainly, _You're welcome_.

Under cover of the others' fierce discussion of various battles, Hermione approached Riddle and scuffed her foot against the icy ground. She did not quite know what to say.

"I never thanked you for watching over me in the Infirmary," she settled on.

"It was the least I could do," he said quietly. His mildest tone carried more authority than the rest of the students put together. It was easy to see why he was Head boy. "Considering the ordeal you've been through, Miss Granger."

"Please," she muttered, "you can call me Hermione."

"Then you can call me Tom."

"Tom." Hermione tasted the word, feeling that it was strangely familiar. Then, all at once, she had it. She knew where she had heard the name Riddle before. She fought to turn the choking sound crawling up her throat into a cough.

No. _No_. It could not be. The polite, magnetic boy standing before her, the boy her own age with hair falling softly into his eyes, could not be Tom Riddle, the head of development and creative force behind Walpurgis Incorporated. Nothing had prepared her for this sort of eventuality. Again Hermione's situation was brought home to her in the most unexpected way, and memories of waiting rooms, biopsy tests, IV needles piercing flesh, swooped viciously down on her.

She had researched Tom Marvolo Riddle extensively for a paper in her fifth year, around the time Walpurgis Inc. had started to become a real world threat, and yes, the dates did correspond. He would have been exactly eighteen years old in 1946. He would have been completing his education at one of the country's foremost colleges.

_Oh, God._

"Are you all right?" Riddle asked, a picture of concern. And suddenly, Hermione wanted to recoil, to push him violently away, to scream into his face. He was one of the most evil people she had ever heard of, so how dare he stand there looking politely interested in her well-being? How dare he—he... _any _of it?

"I'm bored," Abraxas Malfoy drawled, breaking into Hermione's unpleasant epiphany. "Shall we get started?"

"Get started?" repeated Katie.

"Initiation," Riddle explained, tearing his gaze from Hermione's. She felt something like an electric shock, almost as though a physical link between them had broken. "Slytherin go through a little test at the start of their last year. Of course, we've never had a female student before, so if Hermione prefers not to..."

"I'll do it," Hermione said at once, feigning a confidence she did not feel. It was almost worth it just to wipe the superior air of mystery from his face. Riddle regarded her with narrowed eyes. After a moment he shrugged.

"All right," he said mildly. "Tony, the bottles."

He never said please, Hermione observed. He never made requests, only issued commands. And the others seemed to obey him without question. It had to be more than just his status as Head boy; he had to have some sort of malevolent hold over them. Dolohov brought over a heavy canvas bag, from which Riddle pulled an assortment of seven bottles. All were filled with questionable liquids, and none were labeled. Riddle lined them up before her on a bed of brambles glimmering with ice crystals.

"Seven bottles," he said while the others looked on eagerly. "Two of them don't hold a drop of alcohol, but only one of those you'll want to drink, the water. The other would be more use to you for making salad dressing. Two are brandy, and three are absinthe, none of which you'll want to choose if you want to make a good start to your term in the morning. When you pick a bottle, you have to drink everything inside."

He paused, and Hermione met his gaze with steely determination, nodding to show she understood.

"Here are your clues: first, every bottle of absinthe is placed to the left of a bottle of brandy. Second, the bottles at either end of the row look different, but neither is the one you need to choose if you want to stay sober. Third, all the bottles are different sizes, and neither the biggest or the smallest one are absinthe. Fourth, the second from the left and the second from the right taste the same, though the bottles look different. Got it?"

Hermione nodded again. It was rather miraculous, in fact, that she had stumbled upon a school whose initiation rites hinged on pure logic. She had heard stories of college students putting their underclassmen through all sorts of public humiliation. This would be a cinch.

"You're allowed to forfeit," Riddle told her, "up until you decide on a bottle. Once your hand touches it you have to drink the whole thing."

She hated the undercurrent of dark amusement in his voice. She suspected that nothing would please him more than to see her pick the wrong bottle and vomit down a stomach full of vinegar, or else go running starkers through the grounds under the influence of absinthe.

Not if she could help it. Hermione fixed the bottles, concentrating with all her might, and at last she smiled.

"Got it," she said.

She did not look away from Riddle as she reached for the smallest bottle. Her fingers curled around the cool glass, and she lifted it to her lips, tossed back her head, and tasted water. The students laughed and jeered. Hermione downed the drink in one and set the bottle down with a small triumphant smile.

"Hermione Granger," Riddle mused, his cool voice betraying something like anger, or perhaps satisfaction. It was difficult to tell. "Where have they been keeping you?"

* * *

**A/N:** A few things-

1. Neither of Alexander Graham Bell's granddaughters were named Katie, and even if they had been, they would have taken their father's name, Grovesnor, not their mother's maiden name. So sue me, I wanted to have some fun.  
2. The epigraph is from my favorite poet, the delightful Edna St. Vincent Millay.  
3. In case I'm not being heavy-handed enough about it already, Pureblood mania in this fic translates to what positions of prestige your family held in the army during WWII. Also, dark magic more or less equals technology. Don't draw too many deep philosophical conclusions from that. I'm not trying to make any particular social statement, I'm just trying to parallel canon as much as possible. Soooo... that's what's up.  
4. This story will be 7 chapters and an epilogue, by my estimation. I'll try my best for weekly updates.  
5. Yes, Tom definitely has technology he shouldn't have. All will be explained in time (ha-ha).  
6. Yes, Walpurgis Inc. is a total dig at Monsanto. Let's all get on the same page here, GMO's are terrifying.  
7. Gemma Farley is listed as a Prefect in the Pottermore welcome letter for Slytherin.

Cheers!


	2. ii

_ii – turning and turning in the widening gyre  
_

By the time the sun rose the next morning Hermione was already regretting her burst of daring during Riddle's initiation ceremony. It had been stupid and utterly reckless. Her only comfort was that, having passed the test, she would hopefully be allowed to filter seamlessly into the Slytherin population.

She was preoccupied all through breakfast in the Hufflepuff dining hall, nearly missing the encouraging waves and well-wishes from the other girls, and made her way around the frozen lake with a churning, hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. The Prefect, Lestrange, greeted her at the doors to Slytherin College and escorted her to her first class, Evolutionary Biology. She was far too engrossed in the stunning architecture of the corridors at first, in the rough-cut stone walls mounted with old-fashioned lamp fixtures, the marble floors inlaid with filaments of gold, the handsome carved oak door frames, to notice when Lestrange fixed her with an intent sort of disdain.

"You know," he said quietly, and Hermione jumped, "just because you're on Riddle's nice list doesn't mean the rest of us are ready to let a jumped-up little girl waltz in and act like she belongs. You have no business here, and the sooner you realize that and go back to Hufflepuff, the better."

He stepped back to allow her passage into the first classroom on the third floor, giving an ironic little bow. Stunned, Hermione walked past him without knowing what to say. She had, perhaps unfairly, been nursing an impression of sexism as the province of grizzled old men in tweed suits who liked to grumble about the good old days. It took her aback to find it in someone her own age.

Everywhere Hermione looked she was met with unwelcoming gazes and bags dropped into chairs to prevent her from taking a seat. Soon the only chair available was at the very back of the room, next to Tom Riddle, who was twirling a pencil between his fingers and looking mightily unconcerned with his surroundings. Hating him, Hermione gritted her teeth and dropped into the seat on his right.

"Hermione." He nodded at her, twirling his pencil faster. She noticed that he did not appear to have brought any note-taking paper with him. "I hope you slept well?"

"I did, thank you," she lied. Her dreams had been populated by shiftless shadows with disintegrating faces that washed over her in droves. Even after she had woken with a jolt she had thought she sensed unquiet rustlings in her room. She had seldom felt less well rested in her life.

"How do we define the evolutionary process?" asked a jovial voice, and a corpulent man in a bulging waistcoat entered the classroom, wedging himself through the door with some difficulty. He had a heavy walrus mustache and beady eyes that winked briefly at Tom before he launched into speech. "Do we restrict ourselves to speaking of Darwin and his findings in the Galapagos? Do we defer to the mundane in order to remain well within the bounds or respectable academia as—bless their hearts—do our colleagues the historians and the theologians? Ah! I see we have a new face in our midst. Here, gentlemen, you see evolution at work in our very school. For the first time, a new element is added to Slytherin College, a young woman walking our hallowed halls. And your name, Miss?" he asked Hermione, who felt herself blush crimson.

"Hermione Granger, sir."

"A delight. I am your professor of Evolutionary Biology Horace Slughorn, and I will be in charge of making your life most difficult for the next five months. And how would you define Evolutionary Biology, Miss Granger?"

Faces turned from every corner to peer at her, expressions none too friendly. Hermione cleared her throat nervously.

"Er, I would define it as every branch of biological study concerning itself with the evolution of organisms, whether microbial, molecular, biological, genetic, morphological, or otherwise."

"Very good!" boomed Slughorn, and Hermione could feel Riddle's eyes boring into the side of her head. "Very good indeed, Miss Granger! But what say we of the practical applications of said field of study, without which, after all, our entire pursuit is rendered futile?"

He pressed a button on an archaic looking projector and motioned for Alan Black to turn off the lights. A slide show presentation appeared on the blackboard, showing images of various stages of cellular division.

"The etiology of cancer as affected by neoplastic cells, for instance," said Slughorn impressively, "can be understood through Drawin's theory of natural selection due to the inherited variability of cellular survival."

The projector clicked and whirred, and an image appeared of a young boy in a hospital gown with a gauntness in his face characteristic of chemotherapy patients. Suddenly Hermione's collar felt too tight, and she wondered why the air in the room had become so stifling.

"Here we see a young man undergoing experimental intravenous cancer treatment. It follows, then, that Evolutionary Biology can not only shed light on primordial creatures long dead, but on ways of bettering our lives in the present."

The slide changed again to show patients in the advanced stages of cancer therapy: skeletally thin, with nearly translucent skin and deep purple circles beneath their eyes, they had a universal look of abject defeat about them that made Hermione's throat constrict.

She could not breathe... Relentlessly, her mind dragged up memories of the day, long ago, when Harry had gotten his diagnosis: Lymphoma, caused by overexposure to chemical toxins; the very same illness that had killed both his parents. The Potters had lived just a few miles downwind of a Walpurgis Inc. plant, after all. Harry had fought bravely. There had been a time in their second year when he had come very close to death, but then an obscure relative had come forward to announce that a revised version of Lily Potter's will had been discovered and that she had set aside a substantial life insurance policy which allowed her son to pay for rare experimental treatment. The cancer had gone into remission, but always Hermione feared its return.

Hermione did not speak another word for the rest of the lesson. Each time she glanced at the images projected onto the blackboard she wanted to scream. The very moment Slughorn dismissed them, she sprinted out into the corridor and hung onto a window frame, gasping for breath and retching.

"Too much to handle your first day?" asked a snide voice behind her, and Lestrange walked past wearing an unpleasant smirk.

Hermione's scathing retort died in her throat when Riddle stepped in front of Lestrange, his expression stormy.

"I know it must be difficult, but try not to be such a dunce, Lestrange," said Riddle smoothly.

"Just a bit of fun—" Lestrange began, but Riddle cut him off.

"If I say it's not just a bit of fun, it's not just a bit of fucking fun."

Lestrange glanced nervously over his shoulder at Herrmione, comically torn between disdain and mortification.

"Excuse our language," he said quickly.

Hermione rolled her eyes—she had heard more colorful language from Ron when she was all of ten years old—and she could have sworn the corner of Riddle's mouth almost pulled up into a smile.

"Sorry, Tom," Lestrange muttered, hurrying away. Riddle turned to Hermione before she could follow suit.

"You look a little faint," he remarked. "Can I get you something from the Infirmary? They really shouldn't have discharged you so soon."

Hermione shook her head, lips pressed tightly together. Why was he being so _nice?_ What the hell did he mean by being so pleasant and charming, when he ought to be the embodiment of all evil as she knew him to be?

He looked at her knowingly. "So it _was_ the lesson that upset you."

"It's just, I have—_had_ this friend who had cancer," Hermione hedged, deciding on the spot that it would be too dangerous to begin bogging herself down in unrehearsed lies. "Those pictures on the blackboard... brought back some bad memories."

"I'm sorry," said Riddle earnestly. Of course, she did not believe him.

_It was because of you!_ Hermione wanted to shout.

"Can I walk you to your next class?" he asked. "You have Latin, correct?"

Hermione saw no plausible excuse for objection, so she nodded again. Casting around for a less personal subject, she asked, "Why were you speaking to yourself in Binary the other night?"

Harry was the only other person she knew who spoke fluent Binary. His green eyes danced through her head, alight with enthusiasm as he spoke of this or that pet project he was working on for his Virus Protection course at school. She tried not to let out another choked sob.

"You were understandably addled that night," Tom replied, his tone easy, confident. "I think you must have heard me wrong."

"I didn't," Hermione snapped, annoyed as ever when someone tried to make out that her mind was less than a hundred percent sharp.

Riddle regarded her appraisingly. "How do you even know anything about Binary?"

She ought to have been asking him the same question. Hermione had not been aware that the computing language was even commonplace in this era.

"I like to read," she settled on, adopting a lofty voice she hoped would not invite questions.

"That much is obvious."

"I suppose you're going to tell me it doesn't befit a girl to be interested in this sort of thing."

"On the contrary." He smiled, and Hermione forced herself to look away. It was an uncomfortably compelling smile. "I think it's refreshing."

That was the last straw.

"I have to go see Dippet about something," she said, backtracking away from him as quickly as she could. "I'll catch up to you."

Latin did not begin for another thirty-five minutes. If she hurried she could make it. Anything to escape the unwanted attentions of the disturbingly pleasant Head boy.

"Nicholas Porpington's having a start-of term party this Friday," Riddle called after her.

He was looking at her expectantly, as if her response were a foregone conclusion. What in the world?

"Er," she replied, confused.

Something shifted momentarily in his gaze. "I thought you might like to come. Porpington's an idiot but he provides the liquor. It's by invitation only, down in the old servants' quarters. Slughorn lets us use them on weekends."

Tom Riddle was inviting her to a party. She had traveled through time, and yet of all things this was the most surreal to Hermione, somehow. She remembered his face as she had seen it on billboards and in televised interviews in her time: aged, sunken in folds of malice, unrecognizable. What had _happened_ to him?

"I'll think about it," she muttered, scrambling away before he could throw any more propositions at her.

Five minutes later found her sitting in Dippet's office, biting the inside of her cheek to prevent herself from screaming in frustration.

"But you see, sir, I'm really quite certain I had a messenger bag with me when I arrived here," Hermione repeated for the seventh time. "It contained some personal effects of sentimental value, and since I have nothing else to my name I really would like to get it back."

"I'm afraid I really cannot help you, Miss Granger," Dippet insisted, shifting restlessly in his chintz armchair. "As I've told you, no bag of any kind was found on your person. I've interrogated every one of my Prefects about it personally. However I'm quite sure that anything you need can be provided by Hufflepuff School. Madame Umbridge has arranged for you to be given the proper textbooks and supplies, I trust?"

"Yes, but—"

"Excellent, excellent. And how are you settling in at Hufflepuff?"

"Very well, but—"

"Indeed. Perhaps you might like to consider transferring there now that you've had a chance to—"

"No," said Hermione firmly. "I'm exactly where I need to be."

"Well then, with regret Miss Granger, I must cut this interview short. I have a meeting with the board of directors, you see, quite important that I be there at once. Don't hesitate to come to me at any time, however, my dear girl."

"But—"

It was no use. Dippet had already receded out through the side door that led to his private quarters, and Hermione found herself alone in his office, banging her fist against her leg in frustration. She did not suppose it would be of any use to snoop around. After all, he would not have left her here if he were hiding anything of importance in this room. Unless... Was it possible that he might be afflicted with the same mind-boggling sexism that was driving all her classmates' animosity?

It was worth a try. Moving carefully to avoid disturbing any of the knick-knacks piled on the Headmaster's handsome rosewood desk, Hermione sifted through heaps of paperwork, looking for any clue, any small sign—There! A daily planner. And in a tidy scrawl in the top left corner, the inscription '_Meet with P. to retrieve Granger's effects._'

Hermione hurried out of the office, her mind working furiously. Whoever Dippet was dealing with, they must have had some good reason to want to examine the contents of her messenger bag. Could it be that they had recognize the technology inside?

Whoever this '_P_' was, she had to find them, and soon.

000

Tom pushed the girl down onto his bed and yanked her blouse roughly over her head. She wriggled and moaned ridiculously under him, and for a moment he was tempted to roll away and throw her out. But he needed to clear his head for a while, and this was as good a distraction as any. Black had been trying to get Katie Bell into bed for ages, and it amused Tom to know he was getting there first. He would rather have had the Head Girl, Farley (she had matured considerably over the summer, and grown at least a foot, it seemed), but he suspected that she was involved with Lestrange, and Tom didn't take anyone's sloppy seconds.

It was Friday. Four days since Granger's arrival, and he had yet to come up with anything concrete with which to get her under his thumb. He'd had Abraxas looking up the name Hermione Granger in every possible library directory for days to no avail. It was maddening.

It was also thrilling in the extreme. More and more, Tom was beginning to think that his suspicions might be correct. The only question now was how to go about confronting her about it. He would have to be delicate, very delicate. He could not risk scaring her off in case she had some hidden motivation.

The Bell girl clutched at his shoulders and threw her head back, and thoughts of Granger slipped from his mind. But never for long. For God's sake, he did not need this sort of tedious interference when he was finally so close to graduation, so close to achieving everything he had been working for over the past seven years.

Nothing would stand in his way.

When they were done Tom indulged Bell for a little while, pretending to listen to her prattle on about her knitting or whatever the hell it was she did in her classes. When he felt he'd put in the required amount of time, he said lazily, "Hang on, what time is it?"

Her eyes darted to the clock on his bedside table and she yelped.

"Oh my God, I've got to get ready for the party!" She smoothed her hair and hastily tugged on her blouse in what she clearly thought was a fetching way. "I'll see you there?"

"I'm sure you will."

She left, and Tom breathed a sigh of contentment, reaching for a match and lighting a cigarette with one smooth flick of his wrist. He took a drag and stared at the ceiling. Apart from the services his classmates rendered him, and the bouts of fun with empty-headed girls like Bell, he had always eschewed company as much as possible. He was built for solitude: intellectually, he was light-years ahead of anyone else he knew, and people only got in his way.

At length he stood and approached his desk, removing a key from his breast pocket and opening the top left drawer. He lifted out the fake bottom and pulled a stack of papers from the drawer. Tom sorted through old notes, crammed margin to margin in his neat handwriting. He kept all the new material in the device in his journal now, so the entries were dated up to January of 1945. At last he found the page he was looking for and read over his own observations, frowning.

_Have established contact with a man named P, who is prepared to grant me access to the facilities I discovered last term. His manner is extremely suspect. But I suppose I could always... dispose of him once I get what I want. Could I?_

_Yes, I could._

_As a token of trust P has suggested a method of keeping track of my followers—Black, Malfoy, Lestrange, Crouch, and Dolohov, to begin with, more later perhaps—that... Well, I can hardly believe it._

_The real test, though, will be when I require him to undergo the same procedure himself. If he is who he claims to be, he won't be opposed. But if he voices objections..._

What if he were to devise some means of tracking Granger the same way? Vistas of possibility opened up before him—

There was a knock at the door. Tom replaced the papers in the drawer and locked it carefully before answering.

"D'you have the key to the servants' quarters?" Lestrange asked. He was still rather subdued after their earlier altercation outside Evolutionary Biology. Tom avoided rolling his eyes with difficulty. Little did Lestrange know that he had created the perfect opportunity for Tom to swoop in and come to Granger's defense. Girls ate that rubbish up. She would surely be more inclined to confide in him now.

Tom twitched the key before Lestrange's eyes and pulled his tie off the doorknob.

"Let's go," he said curtly, winding the tie around his collar as he led the way down to the servants' quarters. Several dozen upperclassmen from Slytherin and Hufflepuff were already waiting, but no Granger in sight. Damn her, what sort of game was she playing?

The party, once started, propelled itself into raucous revelry at top speed. That self-important little prick, Porpington, had brought along some jazz records, and girls swayed enticingly to Nat King Cole while boys lingered around the back. Here, a table had been laden with drinks smuggled in with very little subtlety. Slughorn expected Tom to stick around to keep an eye on things, so he contented himself with leaning against a wall off to the side and watching the proceedings with distaste.

"Hi!" chirped a voice that drilled unpleasantly into his head, and Bell appeared out of nowhere with a pair of glasses, one of which she held out to him, beaming.

Tom accepted the glass wordlessly and nodded at her before moving further into the room. She remained behind, looking vaguely hurt. Good. He was not in a mood to drink and mingle and chatter mindlessly. He was in a mood to get something _accomplished_, didn't anyone understand?

"Come this way," he said, seizing Black by the collar and dragging him into an antechamber out of view of the rest of the party. "Hold out your arm."

The slender boy paled visibly.

"I need it back," said Tom, impatient. "Hold out your arm. And don't make a sound."

It was deeply satisfying, on some primal level, to watch Black tremble as he raised his left arm and pulled back his sleeve. Crouch and Dolohov were too fiercely loyal to provide this sort of enjoyment; they did not put up any resistance. He could have gotten what he needed from P more easily, of course, but he did not want P to know about his suspicions. He wanted the mystery of Granger all to himself.

Tom pulled a serrated hunting knife from his pocket and unsheathed it. Candlelight shimmered on the blade as it plunged, and Black gasped but did not scream. His lips pressed together in agony as Tom dragged the knife along the faint white scar he had left when he'd first implanted the thing he was now retrieving, almost a year ago. At last the blade caught on something hard and sharp, and Tom dug his fingers into the skin to pull out the small metal chip with the criss-crossing pattern of silver wiring running across its surface. This time Black's mouth did open as if to scream, but Tom raised the bloodied knife in warning and pressed a finger to his lips. With his other hand he undid his tie and wrapped it tightly around Black's arm to staunch the bleeding.

"You'll want to go back to your room and let that heal overnight," he said calmly. "Go to the Infirmary in the morning for some gauze and say you injured yourself sneaking out of the kitchens. I'll keep you out of detention."

Before Black could scramble out, Tom poured the contents of the glass he had gotten from Bell onto his cut. The last thing he needed was for one of his followers to die from a silly infection.

"_Go,_" he said softly.

Black did not need telling twice. Tom advanced into the doorway and watched him practically sprint from the room, feeling that incomparable, heady sense of purpose... and then he spotted her. Granger was standing by the table at the back, eyeing the drinks with distaste and talking with Porpington. She must have borrowed casual clothes from Farley, because her light gray blouse and skirt hung loosely on her small frame, making her look rather childlike. The impression was augmented by the unruly mess of hair she had not even bothered to subdue for the occasion.

It was oddly enthralling, in a way, to find someone who clashed so violently with the cattle-like mentality that plagued every other student at the school. Tom had never met another girl, or any other person, for that matter, who seemed to care so little for the established order of things. The difference was that Tom hid his agenda well, while Granger flaunted hers. It was foolish in the extreme. Perhaps he would have to cure her of it.

"You are here, then," said Tom, stepping between Granger and Porpington, who spluttered indignantly. But the boy retreated, tugging nervously at his ridiculous ruffled collar that looked at least fifty years out of date, when Tom threw him his most dangerous look. Granger watched the exchange with hooded eyes.

"You're late," Tom pointed out.

"I had to go to the library," she replied.

"We haven't got any homework for the weekend."

"I know."

Tom smiled. She was an enigma. Perhaps she thought it was endearing; she was wrong.

"Cozying up to Porpington, are you?" he said. "I have to warn you, the last girl he took a fancy to had to appeal to the Administration to extricate herself."

"We were just talking."

"Stimulating conversation, I'm sure."

"Actually, he was telling me about the girl who died here a few years ago."

Tom shut down his expression completely before his face could betray him, and held himself still while his rage abated. He was going to get Porpington back for this. It would _not_ be acceptable for Granger to begin looking into _that_ fiasco.

"Really?" he said, feigning disinterest.

"Yes, Myrtle Harwick. Nicholas said she died in a bathroom in Slytherin, and there was an inquiry and everything."

"Yes, they arrested the boy who did it, Hagrid. But the Head boy at the time, Dumbledore, provided him some sort of alibi, so the charges were dropped and he only got probation."

"That's awful," said Granger, her mild brown eyes glowing with fierce sincerity. And there was something else when he spoke the name Dumbledore, for just a moment, some flare of curiosity and surprise that flashed across her expression. Tom chewed on his tongue. Hell, what was one death to her when they had all just been through a war?

Unless she hadn't.

"Yes," he agreed. "Can I get you a drink?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Do they have water?"

"Fond of water, are you?"

He waited for her to giggle, but instead a slow smile spread across her face that was vastly more gratifying.

"You could have given me something a bit more challenging," she said. "It wasn't much of an initiation."

"It was devised by my predecessor. You're the only one who's passed it yet. Besides myself, of course."

"Oh, God."

"Yes. Dolohov ran into the Head's office and threw up Brandy all over his desk. Malfoy smelled like vinegar for a week."

This time she did giggle. Then she stopped abruptly and gave him a very measured look, like she was reproaching herself for something. He sensed that this was not a conversation in which he really had the upper hand. It was an unfamiliar feeling. It needed to change, immediately.

"Well, good evening, Hermione," he said, nodding politely and turning away.

Her eyebrows drew together in surprise. "You're leaving?"

She sounded disappointed. Excellent. He gave her a noncommittal smile over his shoulder before locating Katie Bell in the crowd and bending low to whisper in her ear. Bell flushed and nodded. Tom caught the expression on Granger's face as he walked out with Bell, half shocked and half exasperated, and felt a small surge of triumph. He needed her far more intrigued by him than he was by her. If that interest happened to take the form of a foolish female attachment, so be it.

The moment he was outside with Bell, he gave her a perfunctory kiss and said, "I've got to dash, I'm sorry. Just remembered, have an essay to finish for Slughorn..."

She looked scandalized, but he did not give her time to protest. He strode away into the slumbering school, plans half-forming in his mind. It was time to go meet with P.

000

Hermione watched Riddle go and felt the faintest of hollow pangs in her chest. Oh, how ridiculous. She was not actually _disappointed _to see him leaving with Katie. If anything, she told herself, she was concerned for Katie's well-being. The girl clearly had no idea that she was involving herself with a sociopath.

Hermione looked around to see where Nicholas Porpington had gone and, in so doing, spotted something extremely odd.

A minuscule red light was blinking from the inside of the chandelier hung from the ceiling. She could only see it because she had taken refuge behind the drinks table to get a little peace and quiet, while the rest of the students mingled loudly at the center of the room. Squinting, she saw that the light was attached to a small square box that seemed to have been strapped to the inside of the steel band holding up the chandelier.

Unless she was very much mistaken, Hermione knew exactly what kind of box it was. The question was what the hell it was doing here, in this time and place. This sort of technology was not supposed to exist yet.

Riddle's voice echoed in her mind, reciting Binary at top speed. Something very odd was afoot in this school, and Hermione knew that she would not be able to resist investigating.

If someone, somehow , had set up a network of wireless web communication here, it must follow that there would be other active routers elsewhere on the premises. Hermione slipped out of the party and placed her palms flat along the wall of the corridor, looking for a hollow in which another little metal box might be dissimulated. She rapped her knuckles against stone here and there, but came up with nothing. Then, as she made to ascend the staircase to the entrance hall, the first step creaked against her foot, and she had an idea.

Hermione dropped to her knees and pulled at the wooden boards that made up the step. She was able to pry them away with some difficulty, and found a little cubby underneath that contained another wireless router.

In neat, industrial lettering across the bottom of the box were stamped the words '_Project Nightingale._'

Hermione did not sleep that night. She thought she might soon lose the ability to function like a normal human being if she kept this up, but it could not be helped. She waited until her entire floor was asleep, and Gemma had finished her rounds, before sneaking out through the window and stealing across the lake to enter the Slytherin library. There she searched, for hours on end, for any information about Project Nightingale. She pored through old newspaper articles and business directories. After five solid hours of research which yielded no results whatsoever, she uttered a few of Ron's favorite curse words under her breath and returned to her dormitory with a stack of books under her arm. To her alarm, mere seconds after her head hit her pillow there was a genteel knock at her door, and a shadowy figure entered without waiting for an answer.

Hermione jumped up, her heart hammering in her chest, but it was only the Headmistress, frilly magenta nightgown buttoned up to her throat and toad-like smile firmly in place.

"Oh, no need to be frightened, dear! It's only me."

"Professor?" said Hermione wearily.

"I thought it was about time we got acquainted, dear."

"At... four in the morning?"

"Is it so late?" Umbridge gave a simpering laugh. "Oh, heavens, how silly of me! Well, you see, it's just that one of my girls came to speak to me earlier about a student being out of bed after hours. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"No. No, I don't. Sorry."

"I see. Well—_hem hem_—I hope you won't hesitate to come to me if you do see anything funny going on. I certainly wouldn't want to have to start handing out punishments, would I?"

Hermione scrutinized the Headmistress. Here in the gloom the woman's benign expression looked almost sinister.

"I'll be sure to do that, Professor," she said.

"Good girl!" Umbridge turned back before leaving. "And do try to get some sleep, dear. A proper young lady does not cultivate shadows under her eyes."

She closed the door with a meaningful snap. Hermione was growing mightily tired of being told what a proper young lady was meant to do.

"Is Umbridge, er, a little strange?" Hermione asked Gemma the following morning at breakfast, toying listlessly with her eggs.

Gemma frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well, all that '_proper young lady_' stuff..."

"She's just dedicated," Mary Edgecomb interjected. "She wants us to do well. I mean, if she's hard on us it's just because she wants us to marry well, and things."

Hermione dropped her fork.

"What does _that_ have to do with anything?"

"Look, it's just that she wants the best for us," said Gemma. "None of us wants to end up like poor Myrtle, do we? Behaving improperly, messing with things we shouldn't be..."

"I thought Myrtle was killed by that boy Hagrid?" said Hermione, bewildered.

The girls exchanged dark looks and leaned their heads together.

"She was," said Amelia Bones, "but there was a lot of funny business around that time."

"She means that Myrtle was starting to lose it a little. She wouldn't stop going on about this secret room in Slytherin College that no one else knew how to find."

"We looked for it, of course," Katie added. "But everyone knows Myrtle was a bit odd."

Something in this story did not add up.

"Where exactly was she found? When she was killed?" Hermione asked.

"Slytherin visitors' lavatory on the ground floor. The one that's always out of order. Can you _imagine?_ Dying in a _bathroom?_"

"Hmm," said Hermione noncommittally.

She was still engrossed in their discussion when she made her way around the lake after breakfast, and consequently did not note her surroundings until she ran smack into Tom Riddle inside the school, down by the old servants' quarters where she kept her surplus textbooks and materials in a little cubby in the wall between lessons. She nearly fell over. Hermione muttered a quick "Sorry" as she righted herself, and when Riddle did not so much as move she thought she had offended him somehow. Then she saw what he was looking at and stopped, transfixed.

Words had been slathered onto the wall, forming an ominous message in what looked very much like...

"Is that _blood?_" Hermione asked in a small voice.

"It looks that way," said Riddle.

Hermione stared at the message and felt a chill run down her spine.

_The Nightingale has flown—Beware._

"Who did this?" she asked.

"Someone with very bad judgment." There was a note of something arcane and venomous in Riddle's voice. He was usually quite careful to regiment his tone, Hermione realized now. And when he was angry, that care fell away.

"You called for me?"

Hermione whipped around, startled, to see Barty Crouch striding up behind them, clutching convulsively at his left arm.

Riddle turned suddenly brisk. "Yes. Go to the caretaker's office and tell Pringle there's a problem downstairs. Tell him to bring a stain removing agent."

Crouch nodded and immediately set off to carry out Riddle's instructions. Hermione wondered again how Riddle seemed to exercise such perfect control over his classmates.

And what did Crouch mean, Riddle had _called_ him? People here did not have mobile phones. They could not summon one another at a whim.

"Better not stay around here," Riddle warned, interrupting her thoughts. "The younger years will be along any second."

Sure enough, as he and Hermione made to vacate the premises, they were impeded by a sudden influx of muttering students. God, but news traveled fast here. Hermione, who wanted to avoid involving herself in any suspicious activity, refused to answer any of the questions thrown at her. Riddle, however, held up his arms and called, "Enough!"

His voice rang out through the basement. His authority was undeniable.

"I want everyone in class in five minutes. Walk, don't run. _Now._"

Hermione had every intention of following the scrambling masses, but she did not like the idea of Riddle thinking he had commanded her. She lingered a minute longer, looking at the message on the wall and thinking furiously. Finally, when she heard the caretaker's footsteps echoing down the corridor, she turned to go.

Riddle did not bid her farewell. He was usually polite to a fault, holding doors open and pulling out chairs. She wondered what about the message on the wall had upset him so much. Logically, mustn't his attitude mean that he knew something about the culprit? Perhaps the writing even had something to do with him...

Hermione ascended to her first period Latin class with a plan in mind. That word, Nightingale, kept cropping up. In a world turned upside down, in a world of web communications in the 1940's, in a world where Tom Riddle's angelic smile followed her wherever she went, Hermione did not believe in coincidences.

_In the Slytherin visitors' lavatory... The one that's always out of order..._ Katie Bell's words echoed in her mind as the last bell of the day rang through the school. Hermione pretended to embark on her customary trek around the lake back to her dormitory, then doubled back when no one was looking. Heart thudding in her chest, she slipped into the visitors' lavatory, ignoring the wooden panel that had been nailed across the door. Everything was coated in a thin layer of dust and grime, and Hermione wondered if the place had been out of use since the incident with Myrtle.

How to go about looking for clues about a certain 'Project Nightingale' she knew nothing about? Hermione was nothing if not systematic, so with a sigh she dropped her borrowed school bag onto the tiled floor and began to examine every square inch of the walls from floor to ceiling. She scratched at peeling paint and sunken mortar. She knocked her fist against tiles until it was sore, looking for hollow spots. She investigated each bathroom stall, and even pulled apart the top compartments of the toilets themselves. She looked behind mirrors, under sinks.

The more convinced she became that her search was futile, the more Hermione found herself unable to maintain control of her breathing.

_I'm lost._

She was back at square one. There was nothing for her here, and she did not know where to look, and she did not belong but there was no way out.

_Harry, Ron, Mum, Dad—someone. Anyone._

She stumbled forward and grabbed onto the edges of a cracked porcelain sink to prevent herself from falling to the floor. Great, gasping sobs were forcing their way up her throat and she was trembling from head to foot. The world pitched and swayed.

This was more than a good cry, she realized; it was a panic attack. She hadn't had one of those since she'd found out Harry was sick.

_Anyone. Help me._

Hermione bit the inside of her cheek, hard, and tasted blood. She would not scream. She would not go that far. She had to maintain control, or risk being deemed unstable and sent away from Slytherin.

Gasping and shuddering, she turned the tap to splash cold water on her face, but no water came out.

Hermione froze. There was a minuscule figure of a bird scratched roughly into the side of the tap.

A nightingale.

Hermione hiccoughed herself into some semblance of calm at once and traced the bird with her index finger. This had to be it. A clue, a symbol, a message. She only had to determine the next step. She prodded at the tap, pulled and pushed, to no avail.

"How do I make you open up?" she grumbled, swiping angrily at the tear tracks on her cheeks.

She did not expect an answer, but to Hermione's surprise a small electronic beeping noise echoed through the bathroom, followed by a harsher buzzing sound. It reminded her of the game shows she used to watch with her mum, where a buzzer would ring out if a contestant made a mistake: a clear enough message.

"All right," she muttered. "Okay. You need a password."

What kind of secret code would open a chamber that ought not to exist? Hermione paused, then smiled. Ah. Of course. Harry had only taught her a few basic phrases, along with the alphabet, and that had been ages ago. But Hermione never forgot anything once she learned it.

"_0110,_" she said slowly, taking care to avoid mistakes. "_1111 0111 0000 0110 0101 0110 1110._"

_Open._

This time the beeping noise was repeated three times, and Hermione staggered back as the wall behind the sink rumbled into movement. Small clouds of dust swirled into the air, and soon the porcelain surface had fallen out of sight to make way for an opening large enough to fit a slender person.

Hermione's heart beat a violent tattoo against her chest. Did she dare?

Yes, she most certainly did. Nothing she found in the darkness beyond this passageway could be worse than the mess she was already in—worse than constant crushing loneliness and agonizing fear and a gulf of decades between herself and the people she cared about.

Hermione took a deep breath, hitched her bag over her shoulder, and climbed into the opening beyond the sink. It felt like a drainage pipe of some sort. Her hands and knees met hard, cold steel as she crawled along, engulfed by darkness. She pressed on for what felt like several hours, though it must have been mere minutes, until at last she glimpsed light up ahead. The path had been sloping downward for some time, but now it dipped in earnest, turning nearly vertical. Hermione swung her legs in front of her with difficulty in the cramped space and slid into the void, sparing a moment to hope that something would break her fall.

She need not have worried. The slide leveled out gradually some twenty feet below, and Hermione slid neatly to her feet in the middle of a small white chamber lined with tinted windows. There were no doors, but as she watched, the wall opposite began to slide away, revealing a brightly lit corridor where a skinny man stood with his face hidden beneath the hood of a ragged black coat. And suddenly Hermione recognized her surroundings. She experienced a moment of sensory overload as she recalled the terrifying night she had arrived in the past, unhinged, her body ringing with fresh pain. There had been a bare room, empty, lifeless, then a series of doors, then she had stumbled into this very hallway.

At last, it seemed, she had found someone who could give her answers.

"So this is the famous Nightingale," said the man in the corridor snidely.

"I—I'm sorry?" squeaked Hermione, very much wrong-footed.

The man strode forward and pulled out something from behind his back, which he shoved unceremoniously into her arms: her messenger bag.

"Your covert name, idiot girl," he snapped. "Nightingale. Or have you been fancying yourself too important to pay attention all this time?"

"I don't... I'm sorry, but I really don't know what you mean. Who are you?"

"That's none of your concern—"

"Are you P?"

"Quiet," the man said firmly. "There is little time. You're to return to the school with your effects. Your computer's hard drive was wiped completely blank when you jumped over. We've put in a new one and told that blustering fool, Dippet, that it couldn't be salvaged. You'll have enough there to continue your work from the College."

Hermione merely stared at him, at a complete loss.

"Well, _get going._"

"What—But—"

The man sighed impatiently. "Through the corridor there, and out the door on the far right. You'll come out in the village two and a half miles from your school. You'll have to walk back; I can't be seen assisting you. He watches us, keeps track of us. And I hope you're listening, because I will not repeat myself."

"Hang on. _Who_ watches you?"

The man's right hand clutched convulsively at his left forearm, and in her mind's eye Hermione saw Crouch do the same.

"Clearly fame isn't everything," said the man, a definite cruel sneer in his voice. "The _enemy_ watches. Use your brain, girl. Where do you come from?"

Hermione breathed out sharply. "The enemy is from the future?"

"Don't be so ridiculous. The enemy is here. His _success_ is in the future."

"You're talking about Tom Riddle? But what does that have to do with getting me home?"

"I don't have time to waste on your insipid questions. You aren't going home, and you had better stop wasting your tears over that sooner than later. _Goodbye._"

All the air vanished from Hermione's lungs.

"What do you mean, not going home? Why are you here if not to help me get home?"

But the man had turned on his heel and vanished through the first door in the brightly lit corridor.

_Git,_ Ron would have said. But Hermione clamped down on that train of thought at once. If she started to miss Ron, she would never stop.

_You aren't going home, and you had better stop wasting your tears over that sooner than later..._

What the hell did this rude, uncouth stranger know about her? Nothing.

_You aren't going home..._

Hermione stood still and counted down from ten. When she was finished her eyes were dry, her heartbeat was calm, and her shoulders were set. Heaving her messenger bag over her shoulder atop her school bag, she set off down the corridor.

000

Tom flicked his cigarette to the ground and snubbed it out with the tip of his shoe, blowing out a ring of smoke that drifted lazily through the winter air before the wind snatched it away. He felt... not happy—happy was an empty mantra fools repeated to one another to compensate for their lack of ambition—but alert. Possessed of a restless anticipation that made his spine tingle and his blood thrum in his veins. Something was coming, a vast unknowable something like a change in the wind, and he could _feel_ it deep down.

From his spot across the lake he could see the entirety of the grounds, with Slytherin at one end and Hufflepuff at the other. He could see them as they would be when he had bettered them, taken over and razed everything to ash and built it up once more. This was his favorite spot; no one ever came here, and he was free to think in peace.

Then, as if in direct contradiction to his thoughts, he heard footsteps approaching and turned to see Granger trudging down the path from the village with a pair of heavy leather bags slung over her shoulder. Her cheeks were very pink and he thought there might be actual icicles in her hair. She must have walked a long way.

And, what in hell? Was that the messenger bag she'd asked Dippet for? He'd had Crouch and Dolohov search Dippet's office for it repeatedly, and they had come up with nothing. How had Granger gotten the damn thing back?

Unless... she hadn't gotten it from Dippet.

What if she were in league with P, the little bitch? And no one had informed him. Tom clenched his jaw and curled his hands into fists, simultaneously furious and taken aback by the possibility. It was not an emotion he was accustomed to, and it made him want to turn away from her and run over to throttle her at the same time.

"Cutting it close, Granger," he called out, and she jumped in surprise. "Curfew's in fifteen minutes."

She just stood there and _looked_ at him. He slid down from the hollow tree he had been lounging in and approached her, turning the tracking chip he had taken from Black over in his hand.

"What, were you just out for a nice stroll in the freezing cold?" he asked. "I might think you're practically asking for detention."

"Hmph," she said, throwing her nose in the air. "I've never gotten detention in my life."

He could almost believe it. Everything about her screamed swot. And yet, the near blackmail of Dippet with her test scores... the messenger bag...

"Never too late to try something new." He cocked his head to the side, examining that queer streak of white in her hair. Keeping the chip hidden safely between two fingers, he raised his hand and ran it contemplatively through the pure white that shot out from her temple.

To his surprise, she jerked back and gave him a look like a rabbit in a snare.

"What are you doing?" she said.

"I was under the impression I was having a conversation."

"Well I don't know how you converse with other people, but that's not my idea of a normal talk."

He could not help but smirk. "Are you saying you're not a fan of the sort of _conversation_ Katie Bell enjoys, for instance?"

"Not with you," she said lightly, but there was a serious undertone to her words.

That was ridiculous. Everyone was fascinated by Tom. Everyone wanted more of him. Maybe that was why he was so utterly bored with the whole lot of them.

"Like I said," he insisted, stepping closer to her again, "never too late to try. How will you know if you've never done it before?"

He needed her to stop moving. He had the tracking chip perfectly positioned, and was moving his hand back to trace the clasp of a thin gold chain at the nape of her neck. She shivered.

"You always wear this necklace," he said quietly. "Why?"

She looked away from him. "My friend Ron gave it to me. A... long time from now."

"But you never take it off."

She shook her head. Perfect.

"It has sentimental value," she murmured, sounding a little light-headed. "Doesn't that mean something to you?"

"Not especially."

Tom attached the chip to the inside of the clasp where it would not be readily visible, and continued to trail his hand innocuously down her back over her thin winter coat.

"Don't," she said, just barely. She whispered it.

"Why the hell not?"

"I... like Katie."

"Sure. So do I."

"Exactly."

"Not like that, Hermione," Tom chuckled.

She gave him a very level look. "Do you actually think this is endearing you to me?"

He dropped his hand. Lord, she was a headache to deal with.

"I don't think anything in particular," Tom said slowly. "And you clearly think too much."

"Impossible."

And then she walked away from him.

She _walked away_ from him.

Tom watched her go, and slowly, his expression darkened.

000

_things fall apart; the center cannot hold_

* * *

**A/N:** Woah, you guys! I have never hit double-digit reviews on a first chapter before. I am confused and aroused. (Yeah, no, you probably shouldn't listen to anything I say, like, ever.) Thank you: **jfang465, Cellar, Beserked2, Bnick, Speechwriter, Sinnara, StalkingMalfoy, krook, renyun, PrettyInternetBarf, maximumtrouble10, Atlantean Diva, Footnote, Jessica, Mechanical Orange, Guest, Ziwen, mh21, yeah, love-warmth-life, Keira-House M.D, immortal love rodd...** A few things-

1. Early forms of intravenous chemotherapy were being experimented with at Yale as early as 1942, so I don't think my timeline is too far off here.  
2. I've unfortunately gotten very unreliable at answering reviews, but I am quite good at answering asks on tumblr, so you can come talk to me there if you're so inclined. Link in my profile.  
3. If anyone was wondering, Tom's message in Binary last chapter was "Meet Friday at regular time."  
4. **Footnote-** Yes, you make an interesting point. And in fact it's the central issue here for Hermione, that she values science but knows what it can do in the wrong hands. And Tom's are definitely the wrong hands.  
5. The quotes at the beginning and end are from WB Yeats's "The Second Coming."

Cheers!


	3. iii

_iii – dance me to your beauty with a burning violin;  
dance me through the panic 'til i'm gathered safely in  
_

000

"Oh my God, have you _heard?_" asked Romilda Vane, knocking over a jar of marmalade in her enthusiasm.

It was a few seconds before Hermione remembered that she was supposed to say something in response.

"Hmm? What?"

"About that man! The one who escaped from the mental ward in Manchester. They say he's just somewhere out there on the loose." She affected a deep shudder.

"You shouldn't be so callous, Milly," said Gemma reproachfully. "Black was a nice boy. It's really sad what happened to him."

"Black?" said Hermione, confused.

"Alan Black's cousin, Sirius. He was two years ahead of us, I remember when he graduated... Well, then he planned to go on a tour to America and didn't find himself any work, so of course he was drafted. He came back really messed up. Bullet in his shoulder and sort of soft in the head, I heard. He wound up in the mental hospital."

"And now he's broken _out!_" Romilda insisted. "It was in the papers. Clara Zabini told me about it, she said he tunneled out through the sewers—"

"They'll catch him. He's hard to miss, isn't he?" Amelia Bones chimed in.

"Why?" asked Hermione.

"He's got this dirty great tattoo of a dog on his chest. An old family crest or something, but I remember his mother had kittens when she found out he had it done. She turned up at the gates ranting and raving."

"I wonder if he still has that motorcycle," said Katie dreamily. "Gosh, he was fit..."

Hermione thought disconnectedly of Riddle leaning down to whisper in Katie's ear, his lips almost brushing her skin, and frowned.

"Hermione, would you mind helping me with my Latin this evening?" said Mary Edgecomb unexpectedly. "Professor Vector gave us a whole heap of translations."

"No problem. Listen, I've got to run... Library..." Hermione hurried away without finishing her kippers, thinking of dogs and nightingales, hidden tunnels and blinking lights.

She had forty minutes before 19th Century Philosophy. Now that she had her computer back, she intended to put the time to good use. She had not dared use her laptop in her room over the weekend in case Umbridge should come bursting in again. At present she sought out a secluded spot in the woods to the west of the lake and, pulling her flimsy coat tightly about her, flipped open the screen.

She supposed she should count herself lucky. The battery life was full and the hardware was undamaged. Still, every time Hermione thought of the cryptic way the hooded man in the white chamber had messed about with her, she felt a surge of righteous anger. She had done everything right: followed the clues, deciphered the evidence, taken a risk. And as her reward, she had been assured that all her hopes were for naught.

_You're not going home..._

Hermione shook away these gloomy thoughts and watched her desktop load. Her password protection had been removed, as well as every neatly maintained folder filled with her papers and assignments from the last five years. A small icon at the bottom right indicated that she could connect to the web. Hermione pulled up a browser and found the network password protected.

It was surreal—mind-bending, absolutely _bonkers_—to be sitting in a forest in the 1940's attempting to connect to the internet. She tried '_1234_' as a password first, because that was always worth a go, but nothing doing. Could it be Binary again? But no, any word in binary would translate to a horrendously long sequence of numbers.

Hermione thought for a moment more, then typed in '_Nightingale._'

The browser loaded.

She did not quite know what to make of the fact that, according to the hooded man, _she_ was the Nightingale. Setting that aside, Hermione clicked her fingers impatiently at the screen. It took at least a full minute to load fully. She was not accustomed to such an archaic connection speed. At last the screen settled. There was no home page, of course, no website to access, as there was in fact no world wide web. All that appeared was a blank text bar at the center of the screen.

What the hell. She had come this far.

'_Hello?_' she typed. She drummed her fingers nervously against the keyboard, feeling a little silly, but a response appeared almost at once.

'_Who is this?_'

Oh, what a relief to find someone whose understanding of grammar did not evaporate the moment they sat behind a computer screen. She considered for a moment.

'_This is the Nightingale._'

There was a protracted pause.

'_Proof?_'

Damn, damn, damn. The gears in Hermione's brain ground into overdrive and she flittered through every paper she had ever written, every article she had researched. In sixth year she had done a whole extracurricular study on the economic upturn experienced by developed nations post-war. Hadn't there been something... Yes!

'_Read the evening papers. Today, four o'clock, an Eastern Airlines flight will crash in Connecticut. Fourteen passengers dead._'

She crossed her fingers...

'_Fair. What is your cover?_'

'_I'm a student. Who are you?_'

'_I'm looking for a student. Maybe we can help each other._'

'_How do I know I can trust you?_'

Hermione held her breath as the text bar went blank. It was the longest wait yet, and she began to fear that she would not get an answer. At last words appeared, and she read them with mingled apprehension and elation.

'_We can meet._'

'_Where?_'

'_Number 7, Three Broomsticks Road._'

Three Broomsticks Road... that was in the village, just a few miles off. Was she speaking to someone who lived nearby?

'_Tonight? Eight o'clock?_' she typed, her fingers numb from cold.

'_Yes. If the plane crashes._'

Hermione pumped her fist childishly into the air and turned off her computer. The circumstance the plan crash was really very unfortunate, but she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was not to begin meddling with events, so she did her best to put it out of her mind. She had just enough time to return to her room and stow her messenger bag under a loose floorboard before her Philosophy class, and she caught a glimpse of Gemma attending Ladies' Etiquette and Housekeeping through a window on her way around the lake. The Head girl looked absolutely enthused about studying cooking manuals. Hermione shook her head.

She was distracted all through the day, with the result that she failed to raise her hand more than a few dozen times in class. She could feel Riddle's eyes on her and ignored them as best she could. The pristine, crystalline whiteness that had surrounded them the night before, out in the grounds with his hands whispering across her back, felt like a distant dream. She could not understand what had possessed him. Hermione was beginning to grow concerned that Riddle was taking too particular an interest in her. Not that she thought he might grow to _care_ about her; he was Tom Riddle, for God's sake. But curiosity of any sort was dangerous. If she were to disappear suddenly and return home, surely he would wonder...

If? _If? _Hermione shook herself. The question was not if but when.

That afternoon Hermione bundled herself up in three layers of borrowed sweaters and trekked her way up the gravel road to the village again. It was a quaint little settlement with puffs of cotton candy smoke rising from snow-covered chimneys, and especially picturesque at this hour, awash in the warm light of dusk. Hermione stood shivering at the end of Three Broomsticks Road, scanning the nearly deserted streets for anyone who looked out of place. A discarded newspaper plastered to the slushy ground at her feet showed a grainy photograph of a man with straggly black hair and a shirt open over his chest, revealing a tattoo of a monstrous black dog.

_HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?_ the headline asked. Hermione thought he looked sad. Beneath his picture, another article announced: _EASTERN AIRLINES FLIGHT FROM BOSTON TO MIAMI GOES DOWN OVER CONNECTICUT, 14 DEAD._

Eight o'clock came and went. Hermione moved closer to a candy shop and huddled against the wall for warmth, feeling bad-tempered. Eight fifteen... at this rate she was not going to make it back in time to help Mary with her homework.

There was a small shuffling noise behind her.

She was seized brusquely from behind and dragged back, flailing and biting at the hand clamped over her mouth. Adrenaline coursed through her and she twisted and pulled, attempting to execute self-defense move she had studied extensively in theory, but her captor was much too strong.

"Don't struggle," he growled in her ear, shoving her roughly against the wall of the candy shop and keeping her mouth covered. Hermione found herself staring at the very man who had looked up at her from the newspaper on the ground.

She ceased struggling at once and uncurled her fists in a gesture of surrender. Slowly, cautiously, the wild-looking young man with the sunken eyes removed his hand from her mouth.

"Black?" Hermione breathed.

"Are you the Nightingale?" he asked hoarsely. His voice sounded as though it did not get much use.

"I... yes."

"From the leg-top computer?"

"The—the laptop? Yes. You saw about the plane crash?"

He grunted his assent.

Hermione struggled to keep a firm hold on her rational mind. This was the mystery person from the web? A great help that would be. If he was supposed to be mad, she doubted he would be of much help getting her home.

"You said you were looking for a student," she tried. "Is it Alan Black? Your cousin?"

"No, no. Alan's in too deep. Got to get to the source."

"The source?" She was hit with dawning suspicion. "Tom Riddle?"

Black's manic look said it all. Hermione did not understand. If he knew about Project Nightingale, about Tom Riddle's misdeeds, about computer technology, why was he operating in the margins this way? Why wasn't he off with the rude man in the white chamber who had given Hermione back her messenger bag?

"How did you get out of the hospital?"

"Palmed my sedative and slipped past the nurse on the night shift. I broke into the facilities under the forest by Slytherin and nicked some equipment. Found out the truth about Project Nightingale. Knew I had to get an in with someone in the school before I tried anything."

"How do you know about the, er, facilities under the forest?"

"Seen them before. We all did, when we were doing Riddle's bidding. I only left school the year before last, before that I was in with their lot. Got to get Alan out of that mess. Riddle is bad news. But that git P thought I was interfering. He nearly ruined everything, called in the authorities to drag me off and I only just got away."

Hermione thought back to the unpleasant man she had met underground and thought this seemed like a fair assessment. She felt as though she were piecing together a monumental puzzle with only half the pieces available to her.

"You wrote the message on the wall at Slytherin, didn't you?" Hermione realized. "_The Nightingale has flown_..."

"Was trying to draw Riddle out."

"I know Riddle," Hermione said quickly. "If I get you access to him, could you cause a distraction so I can slip back inside the underground facilities without anyone seeing? I need to find some sort of technology to send myself back home."

She was taking a gamble, because surprisingly lucid as he was, she did not know the extent to which Black was aware of her situation. But if he were in the dark about time travel, he would probably think she was only trying to escape the country or something. Black's eyes narrowed.

"Are you... are you playing games with me?" he asked harshly. "That technology won't exist for another sixty years. Project Nightingale is a life sentence. Haven't you been through this all?"

Hermione stared at him, gaping soundlessly. She felt suddenly empty, drained of blood and airless and ready to collapse. She kept encountering this attitude everywhere she went, and it left her both defiant and strangely diminished, as if she was losing her grip on all the things that made her want to keep fighting. Waves of despair rolled over her.

Because, after all, she could see the sense in what Black was saying. Any sort of technology capable of circumventing the rules of space-time would take years, even decades to develop. Even if plans were already underway in the underground facility, how could they possibly be complete any time soon? Hermione had been so desperate to believe that she had a chance of going home that she had clung blindly to an impossible scenario.

She thought she might never be happy again.

Hermione counted slowly down from ten. It was a technique she had learned from her primary school teacher, Professor Lupin, who had taught her restraint when the other children teased her about her bushy hair and "rabbit teeth."

"You... you were never fucking _told?_" For the first time Black sounded taken aback and much more human.

_5... 4... 3..._ How could she ever force herself out of bed knowing she might not return to her life, her family and friends? How could she bring herself to do anything? _3... 2... 1..._

"Look, I can still get you inside the facility if you help me," said Black gruffly. "You can do good work, help people. Enact progress."

"I'll... be in touch," Hermione choked out. A terrible coldness was stealing through her. She could almost hear Harry and Ron's voices echoing back to her through the chasms of time. Unattainable.

Before Black could say anything else she stumbled away, impervious to the chill that bit at her face and hands. The walk back to school was taxing: it was all she could do to keep herself moving forward. Every time she tried to think of Black's offer analytically, she heard Harry and Ron's laughter in her head. After a while the sound was so vivid that she stopped and looked around to see if anyone was following her. That was when she realized that _she_ was the one laughing. Once it started she could not make it stop. Her cheeks were wet with tears and she was shaking with braying, mad laughter.

She dropped to her knees in the gravel and tried to keep counting, but she couldn't.

But she had to.

Somehow she made it back to the front gates of the Hufflepuff grounds, only to find her passage barred by Umbridge, who looked squatter than ever with her hands planted firmly on her hips. Hermione wiped the tears hastily from her face before the Headmistress could see and made a valiant effort to compose herself.

"Hem _hem!_" Umbridge exploded the moment Hermione was within earshot. What was the deal with that stupid little cough, anyway? Hermione was in no mood to answer anyone's questions. Closing her eyes for a moment and praying for patience, she tried to hitch an innocent smile on her face.

"I would like to know what sort of time you call this, dear?" Umbridge asked in a sickeningly sweet voice.

"I—I was just—"

"A lady who returns home after dark may as well bid her reputation goodbye. I thought I made that very clear when we first met, dear."

Hermione wondered how Umbridge had even known she was out. Surely the woman had better things to do than monitor her every movement? With a sneer like poison and honey, the Headmistress took a stack of neat lavender cards from her pocket and began to tick off little boxes with a sharp black pen.

"Tardiness!" she trilled cheerfully. "Impropriety!"

"I wasn't doing anything improper!" Hermione protested, warmth flooding back into her as anger came to her defense. It grounded her, and she was a little reassured: she was not losing her senses, after all.

"Talking back to one's elders—"

"I'm so terribly sorry, Professor Umbridge," a new voice interjected, and Tom Riddle stepped out from behind a pillar of the gate, making his presence known. "I think this is all my fault."

"Why—why Tom, dear!" Umbridge looked suddenly, terribly flustered. "I'm afraid I don't—_hem hem_—don't quite understand."

Tom let his gaze flick over to Hermione's, who gaped at him, confounded.

"I asked Hermione to help me with an assignment for advanced Theology, you see, and we ran a little late. I told her I'd walk her back while I did my rounds, but I had to stop along the way to reprimand a couple of second years who were out past curfew. That's why she's so late getting in."

Umbridge's flaccid face contorted into an ugly sort of leer. It took Hermione a moment to realize that she was smiling indulgently.

"Nothing improper at all, I promise," Riddle added with the merest hint of a smile.

"Why, of course, Tom, of course," Umbridge simpered. "I had no idea. Hermione, dear, next time you'll let me know, won't you?"

Hermione nodded automatically.

"Good girl! We won't say anything more about it just now. Hurry off to bed, dear!"

She turned on her heel and began to waddle up the courtyard to the school, leaving Hermione to glare suspiciously at Tom. She ought to thank him, she supposed. She ought to thank him because he was kind and polite and unendingly helpful, and at eighteen he had yet to do anything to jeopardize her best friend's life or anyone else's. She ought to smile—and then she realized that she was already grinning at him a little. She'd had few reasons to genuinely smile since she'd landed herself in this whirlwind of a nightmare, and she might as well take every one.

"How did you know I was out?" she asked.

He reached over and traced the chain of her necklace again in an absent-minded sort of way.

"Call it intuition," he said. He dipped his head a little lower to speak in her ear, and added, "Now you owe me."

000

Granger was avoiding him.

Tom would not have noticed the eccentricities of one girl, normally, but this girl was important to him. And it was quite clear that she was not on board with his vague overtures of blackmail. Moreover, the all-consuming boredom that was 19th Century Philosophy had become slightly more bearable with Granger's insistence on waxing poetic about Plato's Republic added into the mix. He could always count on her to roll her shoulder back and raise her hand, right on cue, giving him an excuse to sigh audibly. Her cheeks would redden a little and she would glare; he would smirk at her.

It was not nearly as much fun when she was holding herself so tensely and darting constant weary looks at him out of the corner of her eye.

It irked him that he felt compelled to return those looks. _She_ irked him. Her trips to the village and her secrecy and her encyclopaedic knowledge. She was too close to something like a real opponent, someone who could meet him on even footing. And it was clear that he had massively misjudged her. She knew too much. She had a plan.

And now she was in his debt.

Tom was convinced she was the type whose honor and moral center would do all the heavy lifting—she would feel bound to repay him for his help. But if that failed, all it would take was a little tip-off to Umbridge, and she would have no choice but to comply. All that remained was to decide exactly what he wanted from her.

It would be all too easy to simply force her to join his ranks. A cleverer move would be to wait and draw out her secrets one by one until he had her in his power willingly, ready to put her mind at his disposal.

She could be a valuable asset.

She could, for instance, confer with him on the matter of that formula he had been working on. The one that had been giving him so much trouble. And if it came to that, she could also take the fall for a number of Riddle's less savory endeavors. She had no family, no one to back her up. It would be easy to blame everything on her...

"Why are you following me?" Granger asked, and Tom realized that he had fallen into stride automatically beside her at the end of class.

"We both have Greek with Trelawney," he pointed out. When she continued to look uneasy he said, "If you have an abundance of pleasanter company lined up and waiting, Hermione, then by all means..."

She looked over at Lestrange and Dolohov, who were throwing her dark looks over their shoulders some ten paces ahead. She had absolutely destroyed the pair of them during the debate portion of the class.

"I couldn't be bothered what people think of me," she said haughtily.

"That's a bit short-sighted. Don't most people prefer to have some friends?"

"You don't seem to be too concerned about it. They don't look happy you're talking to me. I'm meant to be an outcast."

"Charles and Tony's _opinion_ isn't a problem as long as they keep it to themselves."

Granger looked at him curiously. "But _you_ don't care that I'm a girl and I've got the highest grades in the school?"

Tom clenched his jaw and willed himself not to throw her against the wall and lift her from the ground by her throat until she was coughing and spluttering and pleading— Highest grades in the school? Hardly.

"Second highest," he said.

"We tied on the admissions exam, if I remember correctly."

"We'll see. And no," he added. "I don't care that you're a girl."

It had thrown him for a loop at first, to be sure. He had always thought of girls as mostly ornamental, a lively distraction, but without much to offer in the way of real world contributions. He had never had reason to think otherwise, after all. Now that he did, he found himself shrugging. The fact of Granger's gender was secondary to the fact of her tedious secret keeping.

She sat next to him in Greek without appearing to think about it, even though there were several free tables elsewhere in the room.

They were tackling the Iliad that week, a text for which that senile moron Trelawney seemed to have an undue fondness. Tom's eyes slid over passages about Achilles and Thetis, unfocused—there was really no need for him to study this rubbish when he could be putting his time to much better use—and he could not help but scoff a little at the over-exaggerated language of affection that saturated the text. One would almost have thought Achilles was a bloody infant, the way Thetis fawned over him.

Tom sometimes wondered, with idle, impersonal curiosity, what it would be like to have a mother. His own mother had snuffed it on the day of his birth, and to add to that joyous event, she had left him nothing, made no plans for him whatsoever. He had grown up in a dank fucking orphanage not even knowing that his grandfather on his mother's side had been a five star General in the first Great War and the great-great grandson (separated by however many generations) of Salazar Slytherin, the founder of this very school.

His father, on the other hand... When Tom had been old enough to go looking, he'd discovered that his father was nothing but a filthy deserter. He'd deserted the army, and he'd deserted his wife when he found out she was pregnant with a child he did not want.

And for that, he'd gotten what was coming to him.

Tom knew he would never make their mistakes. He would never allow himself to waste away, his legacy withered and his life's work brought to ruin. He would rise above all that, if only he could get that damn serum to cooperate.

He paid a visit to the unused bathroom on the ground floor when classes ended and made his way to the lab through the underground tunnel. He had checked the GPS on the device in his journal, and he knew that P and his associates were not there, which suited him perfectly. He preferred to work in solitude.

The glow of fluorescents illuminated cold steel tables when Tom entered the lab, and he admired the equipment he thought of as his own. Microscopes, beakers, infrared lamps. The most advanced models found anywhere in the world, and they were his to do with what he saw fit. All it had taken was a bit of leverage and P had become very willing to negotiate.

Shrugging on a crisp white lab coat, Tom got to work. He had been tinkering with the formula for months now, and he sensed that he was getting close to success. All he needed to do was sort out the steroidogenic enzymes responsible for reconfiguring neural pathways.

He adjusted the lens on the microscope, wondering idly what Granger's face would look like if she could see this lab.

000

'_We can meet again on Sunday. I want access to the facility without anyone else around._'

Hermione pressed the ENTER key and resisted the temptation to slam her fist down on the keyboard several more times in her impatience. Who knew whether Black would even be online?

'_Four o'clock. The village. Bring food._'

She grinned ruefully.

'_See you there._'

She would have to find some way to gather extra rations at mealtimes and spirit them away to her room in the days intervening. She wondered where Black was hiding, how he was even surviving out on his own in the heart of winter. Hermione, Harry, and Ron had gone on a camping trip together one summer, pitching their tent inexpertly in the countryside near Ron's parents' farmhouse, and things had deteriorated at an alarming rate. None of them had been able to work out how to cook their food on a campfire, and they had soon broken out into bickering that had turned shockingly personal. Ron had stormed off and refused to speak to them for weeks.

Hermione's heart gave a sad pang at the thought of Ron. Things had just been getting started between them. They had finally, _finally_ kissed over Christmas, and even though their progress from there had been slow and tentative, it had been just what she'd wanted for as long as she could remember.

He was probably worried out of his mind, wondering where she was. And he might never find out.

_7... 6... 5... 4..._

Hermione put her computer away and hurried back to her dormitory before it could get dark, so as to avoid giving Umbridge any reason to hound her. She arrived in the dining hall just in time for dinner, and approached her usual table to find the girls in an unprecedented frenzy. Gemma was beaming from ear to ear and talking very fast while flapping her hands. Romilda and Mary were clutching at one another and crying what looked like tears of joy while Katie and Amelia jumped up and down together, exchanging wordless exclamations of glee.

"Did I miss something?" Hermione asked, thinking that she would really rather not know. For the last few days she had been by turns overcome with listlessness and fiercely determined not to let her circumstances wear her down. At times she could barely drag herself out of bed. At others she was lost in a sea of her own feverish, churning thoughts, barely aware of the people around her.

"Amelia's leaving school!" Gemma cried, her smile growing even wider.

Hermione's mouth fell open in horror. "Oh Amelia, I'm so sorry—"

"No, no!" Amelia squealed, thrusting her left hand into Hermione's face: a diamond glimmered on her ring finger. "I'm _engaged!_"

Hermione moved her lips silently like a fish out of water. She was fully diverted for the first time since her meeting with Black.

"We met over the summer, Roland and I, and he's been my sweetheart ever since," Amelia explained rapturously. "He didn't think he could marry me because his parents are Protestant, but he finally worked up the courage to tell them, and they've given their blessing. I'm just so happy I could scream!"

Over the girls' renewed bouts of excitable squealing Hermione asked, "But what does that have to do with your leaving school?"

"Well I'm not going to stay around here once I'm _married,_" said Amelia in the same tone she might have used if Hermione had asked why one plus one equaled two. "I mean, I'll have a house to tend to and everything, won't I?"

"You're—You're _abandoning_ your education to get married?"

For the first time, Amelia frowned. "Why are you being so weird about this? This is the happiest day of my life!"

"I just think," said Hermione carefully, struggling with the condescension creeping into her tone, "that you shouldn't have to leave school to be with the person you love. Shouldn't he support your education? Why can't you continue your studies and he can learn to cook for himself and... and..."

She trailed off at the incredulous looks on the girl's faces. She could see that she had lost them completely.

"You know," said Amelia with distinct frostiness, "I think Hermione might think she's a bit better than us since she attends that boys' school."

"No!" Hermione protested. "No that's not—not at all what—"

"You were certainly too good to help me with my homework the other night like you promised," said Mary.

"Look, I just think we have a right to our own careers and—"

"I've been dreaming of my wedding since I was six!"

"—Not saying you shouldn't get married but—"

"—Should really stop ruining this for everyone—"

"—Really young, and it might be better to wait a few years before you—"

"Enough!" said Gemma in a carrying voice, and Amelia took a step back, breathing hard. "Hermione didn't mean anything, Amy, she was just trying to help."

"But—"

"Hermione, why don't we go for a walk and get a little fresh air?" said Gemma firmly.

Hermione nodded gratefully. Together they made their way out of the hall and onto the grounds, where the snow had melted, leaving behind a murky expanse of mud and leaves black with winter's rot. Hermione stared at her feet as they walked towards the lake, not knowing how she was supposed to redeem herself. She had meant every single word she'd said.

How could she be expected to function here if people did things like abandon their education at the drop of a hat?

"Look, Hermione, I know you're a little progressive and particular and all that," said Gemma bluntly. "And I think that's really special about you. We all do. But you have to accept that most of us are happy to do the proper thing. It's why we're here."

"Meaning that I'm _not_ doing the proper thing?"

"Well, not really, no. But listen, that's your business. Just like Amelia's choices are her business. This is going to make her family really happy—Oh!" Gemma clapped her hands over her mouth in mortification. "Hermione, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to..."

Oh, because her family was supposed to be dead, Hermione realized. Gemma felt guilty for bringing it up. Hermione tried for a reassuring smile.

"It's all right," she said. "Thank you for... intervening."

"Look, why don't I go get the girls and we can pay a visit to Slytherin? We still have an hour and a half until curfew. We'll have some fun and forget any of this happened.

The last thing Hermione wanted to do was spend more time with her hostile classmates. But she did not see that she had much choice.

"All right," she said.

Gemma turned out to be correct. The argument with Amelia was forgotten the moment Hermione offered her sincere congratulations, and the girls followed the path around the lake chattering amicably and exclaiming over Amelia's ring. Their giddiness was infectious, and Hermione could not help but feel her spirits rising a little. It had been unfair of her to judge Amelia's decision. She kept forgetting how far in the past she was.

How far in the past she was perhaps _for good_.

Her good mood was short lived. All semblance of cheerfulness evaporated the moment she saw Malfoy, Lestrange, and Dolohov leaning against gazebo in the Slytherin gardens, looking unbearably superior.

"Well, well, well," drawled Malfoy, "a little bird tells us Bones is having herself a wedding."

"Six weeks from tomorrow!" Amelia announced proudly, showing off her ring.

"Congratulations," said Lestrange. "Think you'll wear a white dress?"

"Not the way I hear it," said Dolohov snidely.

Amelia blushed crimson.

"Shut up," said Hermione angrily.

The boys jeered and launched into lofty imitations of Hermione's furious tone. Gemma and Katie exchanged uneasy glances.

Romilda, on the other hand, threw her chin out and said, "Jealous, Tony? The way I hear it you could be wearing white all the way to your funeral."

The laughter died from Dolohov's face and his eyes sharpened. "Shut it. You don't know what you're talking about."

"Let's everybody calm down," Gemma pleaded. "We're just here for a little celebration—"

"I'm not going to sit here and listen to backtalk from a bunch of bloody—"

"Oh that's rich, coming from a—"

"I wouldn't talk if I were you, Vane," Malfoy interrupted. "Everyone knows you get passed around like a church collection tin."

A haze of red-hot anger clouded Hermione's vision, and before she knew it she was striding up to Malfoy and drawing back her arm. The next thing she knew there was a warm sort of sting across her palm and Malfoy was yelping loudly while several of the girls gasped.

"Hermione!" said Gemma reproachfully. "You—you can't—"

Hermione ignored her.

"Don't you _ever_ talk to her that way again," she spat at Malfoy.

"What the _fuck?_" said Dolohov, looking between Hermione and Malfoy. The latter had a large red patch blooming across his cheek and blood running down his chin. She had slapped him hard enough to split his lip.

"Language, Tony," said Malfoy thickly, edging away from Hermione and looking somewhat bewildered. "There are women present."

"Oh for heaven's _sake!_" Hermione could not stand to hear any more. She stomped her feet as hard as she could as she stalked off, intending to return to her dormitory and slam the door. Except that she had no desire to go sit in a room with pink walls and carpets and curtains and doilies and stare at the floorboards, too frightened to pull out her computer.

_Barmy, the lot of them,_ Ron would have said, before stealing whatever book she was reading to make her laugh and scold him. But Ron was not here. There was no one she could talk to, no one who behaved rationally.

Well, not no one.

On impulse Hermione turned around and stomped the rest of the way up the grounds to the Slytherin front doors. She had never had any reason to find out where Riddle's room was situated, but she had seen him heading in that direction many times after class. She did not have too much difficulty locating the dormitory marked with a plaque reading 'Head Boy.' The door was ajar, and she knocked softly before prodding it open with her toe.

Riddle whipped around. He was halfway to sitting down and his coat was still on, as though he was just getting in. His eyes widened infinitesimally, but he gave no other sign that he was startled by her presence.

"Hello," he said slowly.

"I hit Malfoy in the face," Hermione said, walking in and closing the door behind her. His room was not what she had expected, if she'd had any expectation. It was tidy and the walls were pale and bare. The bed was made, the papers on his desk arranged in straight stacks. Well, what had she thought she would find, exactly? Gruesome genetic experiments? Bodies stacked in the corners?

He sat on his bed and looked at her, impassive.

"He was being extremely rude to Romilda," Hermione went on, crossing her arms behind her back and wondering if he would ask her to sit down. He was beginning to make her feel foolish.

"Romilda invites rudeness, sometimes," he said at last.

"Hmph. Not like this. He said..." Hermione faltered, wondering why she felt the need to look away. A blush was creeping its way up her cheeks, for some reason. "He said she gets... passed around like a—a church collection tin," she finished very quickly.

A small smirk tugged at the corners of Riddle's mouth.

"Apt," he said quietly.

Hermione glared at him, mortified.

"You... Have you—and her—?"

The look Riddle gave her was pure malicious amusement.

"Why the sudden interest in my personal life?"

"I didn't—Never mind."

"Well, if you're here to hide from Malfoy, you'd better sit," Riddle said, dragging up his desk chair with his foot. Hermione sat gratefully and examined the nails on her right hand, still fighting a blush.

"Everyone is just so... ridiculous sometimes," she muttered at last.

"Would you like something?" Riddle asked, sounding a little too entertained for her liking.

"Er, what?"

He patted the pack of cigarettes sticking out of his breast pocket and pulled a bottle of scotch from under his bed.

"Oh God, no, thank you!" said Hermione indignantly. "You're Head boy, how do you even have all this stuff?"

"Because I'm Head boy."

"Well you'll get lung cancer."

He gave a startled chuckle. "What?"

"The cigarettes. They'll give you lung cancer."

"How did you come up with that? Good one, never heard that before."

_No,_ Hermione wanted to say viciously. _You're going to get lung cancer. It will make the national news. And you'll cure yourself with your mountains of ill-gotten money and the best health care in the country while hundreds of people keep dying because of your pesticides and chemical waste..._

"Forget it," she said.

Riddle shrugged. "Suit yourself," he said smoothly, uncapping the Scotch and taking a deep swig straight from the bottle. He swallowed it down without a grimace, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down, and ran his thumb over his bottom lip with a small noise of satisfaction. Hermione found her gaze lingering, and she cursed herself for her inability to focus in his presence.

"Look, I'm sorry about Malfoy and the others," said Riddle unexpectedly. "They're idiots. But you don't need to worry too much about them because, again, they're idiots."

Hermione very nearly laughed. "They kept saying the rudest things and then apologizing for swearing."

"Most girls wouldn't take that as an excuse to hit someone in the face."

"My family is—_was_—a bit progressive," she said pensively. It was perfectly true. Her grandparents had never gotten married. It had caused quite a scandal in their day. She wondered if they were alive somewhere nearby; if she would recognize them if she saw them.

"What did your family do?" Riddle asked. "We know they weren't with Churchill in the Blitz..."

"Before the war my father was a dentist. I don't have any siblings."

"What about the boy who gave you the necklace?"

Hermione looked down at the pendant Ron had picked out: gaudy, not at all her color or taste, and yet very dear to her.

"He's gone," she said quietly. "I won't see him again."

It was almost a relief to say it out loud, like a weight lifted from her shoulders. She had not fully realized that she believed it until it fell from her lips. Something like a hysterical sob threatened to burst from her throat, but she swallowed it down, looking quietly out the window. She did not know how long she stayed that way, mulling over her own epiphany. Riddle sat unobtrusively by her side, staring at the wall. He seemed to feel no need to fill the silence with words, for which she was grateful. Slowly, a preternatural calm settled over her.

_3... 2... 1..._

"What about your family?" Hermione asked, some time after the sun had dipped below the treetops on the horizon.

Riddle stirred and looked at her with veiled eyes as though he were coming out of a deep reverie. His expression was no longer quite as friendly.

"Dead," he said. "I'm sure you've heard the story. Penniless orphan makes good, escapes his dreary life to come to the country's best school. Slughorn is very fond of it."

"I didn't..."

"Don't shower me with platitudes, Hermione. I have a feeling you're better than that." His tone was free of bitterness, longing, any emotion at all. Suddenly Hermione was a little afraid of him.

"I was just going to ask if you miss them," she said.

"You don't miss something you never had."

Hermione looked at the tightly controlled lines of his face and wondered whether he had ever talked this way with anyone before. The possibility that he hadn't was strangely thrilling.

These were dangerous thoughts. Hermione did not know where they had come from, or how to stop them, so she tried instead to remind herself of all the reasons why she should be on her guard. It was not difficult to do. She had already said more than she had planned and made herself more vulnerable than she had done since coming to the past. And all this with the most dangerous boy in perhaps the entire country. She could not have maneuvered herself into a stickier situation if she had tried.

"You said I owe you," she said, trying to keep her voice calm.

He looked at her evenly. "I'm assuming you're glad not to be serving detention with Umbridge?"

"I didn't say I wasn't. But I never asked for your help, either."

"Do you ever ask anyone's help?"

He did not say it with exasperation like many people, even Harry and Ron, had done before. It almost sounded like a compliment.

No, she thought, she rarely did. Hermione hated relying on others. She gave a small twitch of the head as if to say, _Well, now that you mention it..._

Riddle stood and walked to the window, facing away from her.

"I've been working on a sort of... extracurricular project," he said. "I could use a second opinion to help me work out some of the kinks. I'd like you to have a look at it."

Hermione tried in vain to hide her surprise. He wanted her help?

"What sort of project?" she asked.

"Call it biological engineering. You may not have heard of it before, but—"

"I've heard of it."

"Right. We have a deal, then."

The sun had vanished completely, and the room was plunged in darkness. Hermione felt an involuntary chill go through her as she nodded.

"We have a deal." Then she gasped dramatically. "Oh, I've got to get back!"

"I'll walk you," Riddle offered.

"No, no, there's no need."

"What if there are werewolves wandering the forest?" he asked wryly.

"Oh, very funny."

"Good night, Hermione."

She slipped out of the room before he could say anything else in that quiet, velvety voice that made her excessively nervous. Even in the dark Hermione knew her way around the lake like the back of her hand by now, and she was feeling tremendously relieved by the time she snuck back into Hufflepuff and tiptoed up to her dormitory.

"Hermione?"

She almost jumped out of her skin. Clapping her hands over her mouth to avoid screaming bloody murder, Hermione whipped around to see Amelia poking her head out of her dormitory.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to scare you. Are you just getting in?"

"No problem," said Hermione as her heartbeat returned to normal. "I was just... out for a stroll."

Amelia wrinkled her nose. "You smell like smoke. _Ooh,_ you've been out with Riddle, haven't you?"

"No, no, it's not like that."

"Well, listen, I wanted to say. It was really nice what you did for Romilda."

Hermione grimaced. "It was impulsive."

"All the same. I've been thinking... Maybe I'll take a typing class after I marry Roland. I could be a desk clerk, maybe, and earn a little extra money for the house. I think I'd like that."

All at once Hermione found that she was beaming.

"I think that's a wonderful idea," she said.

Amelia smiled and retreated into her room, and Hermione went to bed with her mind teeming, for once, with something besides worry.

000

Tom waited until Hermione had gone. Then he stole out of his room and walked off the grounds under the moonlight. Once he had made it to the village he broke into the local library through the back door and picked the lock to the public records room. He narrowed his search to families with single children, with the father a dentist and the mother possibly some sort of activist for women's rights. He ignored the exhaustion prickling at his eyes and read relentlessly through paper after paper, wedding announcement after wedding announcement. Still nothing.

"_Fuck,_" he growled, swiping a pile of papers angrily off the table. How was it possible that her life was so thoroughly well hidden? Was it bloody _magic?_ The papers went toppling to the floor with a mighty crash. After a moment Tom bent to pick them up and his gaze fell on a small piece in the _London Gazette _classifieds.

_Seeking information on the whereabouts of dental student Walter Granger and suffragette Adele Peters, believed to have eloped on Christmas Eve. Families would be grateful for any news..._

The photograph was grainy, but there was no mistaking the resemblance: the lively looking woman had Granger's hair, her slightly uneven lips, her slim jaw line.

But that did not fit at all. The couple in the photo were in their early twenties, and the article was dated two years ago. These people could not have a teenaged daughter.

This was the final proof, the confirmation of all his suspicions. Tom allowed himself a deep sigh of victory in the dusty annals of the library, bolstered by the empty darkness and solitude of the night.

He had his answer. Now all that remained was to determine how far in the future Hermione Granger was from.

* * *

**A/N:** Hey you guys, hey, it's been a while, how have you been? You're looking _good_. Many thanks for your reviews: **krook, Beserked2, Speechwriter, Ahsilaa, freebird4, StalkingMalfoy, Keira-House M.D, mh21, XxCupCakeLoverxX, Atlantean Diva, Ziwen, love-warmth-life, frunzamonicaioana, Sinnara, Bnick, anonymously peeved, Molly Dooker, TheLightningScar, Alaia, Held Together With Tape...**

1. Epigraph is from Leonard Cohen's "Dance me to the end of love."  
2. That plane crash over Connecticut really happened.  
3. A spider the size of a fucking Prius just walked into my room and I thought I'd share that horror with you all. Goodbye I am dead.


	4. iv

_iv – you're in pretty good shape, for the shape you are in.  
_

000

"Your argument is Ad Hominem," said Hermione angrily, facing Crouch across the podium.

"What?" Crouch blinked at her.

"It's a logical fallacy! You're using a personal attack to cover up your lack of cogent defense—"

"No I'm not! It's a well known fact that men are more rational, and women let their emotions—"

"And do you have any evidence to back that up?" Hermione asked through gritted teeth.

"All right, we're just about out of time!" Professor Burbage, the Theology teacher, tried meekly to intervene.

"You seem pretty emotional right now," Crouch insisted, smirking at Hermione.

"Only because you refuse to acknowledge—"

"That's really quite enough!" Burbage wheezed, looking to Riddle for help.

"Crouch," said Riddle mildly.

Crouch gave Hermione a very dirty look and vacated his podium. He swept to the back of the room, where Malfoy, who was still sporting a swollen lip, leaned forward to whisper something to him. Hermione was practically trembling with anger by the time she gathered up her things at the end of the lesson.

"You're not making things easy on yourself, you know," Riddle told Hermione as they walked to European History together five minutes later.

Hermione glared at him. "Oh, don't _you_ start as well—"

"Barty was right, you were being emotional."

"I wasn't emotional, I was indignant." Hermione reached into her bag and produced a small jewellery tin she had borrowed from Katie. "You know, it's about time someone stood up to all this nonsense about women's oppression and girls not even being allowed a decent education."

She rattled the tin, and Tom said nothing, so she opened it. Inside were a number of buttons emblazoned with the letters S.P.E.W. Hermione had hand-drawn each one painstakingly overnight, pricking her fingers on the pins and cursing under her breath. In the end the effect had been more or less what she'd hoped, and she _was_ rather proud of the slogan.

"Am I meant to ask what this is supposed to be?" Tom said, blank-faced.

"It's the Society for the Promotion of Equality for Women."

"... SPEW?"

"It's not SPEW, it's S.P.E.W. Here, you can have a button."

Riddle eyed the button dubiously. "And why would I want one?"

"So you can join. I need a vice-president."

Hermione had tried the buttons out on the Hufflepuff girls that morning and, to her consternation, had met with a wall of polite resistance. She had outlined in detail her eighteen-step plan for the reformation of legislation governing women's issues on first a local, then a federal level, glowing with fervor, to an increasingly bewildered audience. It was apparently no use explaining that she was positive this sort of movement would catch on. Amelia had taken one with a dubious look that said that she was humoring Hermione to be nice, but Amelia had packed her things and left later that very day. The other girls had declined, looking mortified.

"I couldn't!" Katie had said, shaking her head vehemently. "I'm really sorry, Hermione. But how could I hold my head up wearing something like that? My mother would have a fainting spell if she found out."

But Hermione was not ready to give up so easily.

"If I take one, you'll do something for me," said Riddle at present. It was not a question.

Hermione smiled wryly. "Yes, that does seem to be the way things go, doesn't it?"

He stopped and leaned against the doorway of their History classroom. "The Founder's Ball is coming up."

"Oh." Hermione did not know what the Founder's Ball was, and she hated owning up to gaps in her knowledge.

"There's a Ball the first week of February, on Salazar Slytherin's birth date. It's formal dress, for the fourth years and up. Dippet usually gets a popular singer, and everything."

"And you want us to work on that bio-engineering project while everyone is at the Ball?"

"No, I want you to go to the Ball with me."

Hermione waited for him to crack a smile and explain that he was joking. He didn't.

"Er..." She did not quite know what to say. On the one hand, the idea of going to a ball with Riddle was repellent to her. It represented putting on a charade of camaraderie with the aged, malevolent image of Tom Riddle in her head, simply for the sake of trying to ferret out a few of his secrets by getting closer to him. On the other hand, it was becoming increasingly difficult to connect the nefarious Riddle in her head with the boy who stood before her. She kept catching herself thinking how deplorable it was that he had been lured down such a dark path by the technology P and his associates had introduced into his life.

"As friends, if you like," Riddle specified. "You've made yourself clear enough on that count, don't worry. And it's not like I don't have other options."

Suddenly Hermione was very annoyed.

"Why don't you ask one of your _other options_ to the Ball, then?" she snapped.

He rolled his eyes. "Hermione. Just say you'll come. The objective here is for me to avoid taking some giggling idiot."

"So I'm your least objectionable option?"

"That's the idea, yes."

"What about Katie?"

"What about her?"

"Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about," Hermione snapped. "Katie is my friend and—"

"Hermione, I don't think you understand just what kind of arrangement Bell and I have."

Hermione cursed her cheeks for turning a sudden, violent red. She could not continue this conversation...

She thrust the button at him, and he pinned it gingerly to his uniform. Then he opened the door and stepped back to let her through. Hermione could not explain the lightness she felt as she sat down next to him, but she knew very well why the vague taste of guilt clung to the back of her throat.

"So," she said, plunking herself down next to Katie that evening at dinner, "Riddle's invited me to this Founder's Ball thing."

Katie's eyebrows went up. "Are you two... together now?"

"What? No, _no_, not at all," said Hermione, _very _vehemently.

"Well, you're welcome to him," said Katie with a small shrug. "I mean, he's gorgeous, but he's so _serious _all the time."

Hermione felt a strange urge to say something in defense of Riddle, and turned away at once. There was something seriously wrong with her.

She spent the remainder of the week in a state of limbo, applying herself with newfound vigor to her homework in an effort to keep her mind busy. She declined Romilda's forceful invitation to "do something about that hair" on Sunday, and made her way to the village a few hours early to visit the candy shop. She would have liked to buy some Sky Taffy or Almond Joy bars in memory of Ron's favorite snacking items, but had forgotten about sugar rationing. Ron would have gone absolutely mental. She settled on some packs of candy-coated Zag Nuts, which she managed to exchange for her sterling silver earrings, and added them to the meager bag of foodstuffs she had gathered over the course of the week.

This time, when Black seized her and dragged her away, she barely reacted.

"There's really no need for that," she muttered, massaging her neck when he released her in the alley.

"I say there is," Black growled. "Food. _Now._"

Hermione handed over the bag and watched as Black scarfed down an entire loaf of bread, two apples, and a heap of cold kippers. His mood seemed to improve marginally when he was finished. Hermione no longer saw potential insanity when she looked at him, she realized. She saw a man driven to desperate measures, certainly. A man who had been living rough. But she also saw a great deal of caring.

"Come on," he said, taking off towards the back of the shop without preamble. They crept along the sparsely populated roads of the village until they reached an abandoned lot where there stood an ancient house in severe disrepair. Hermione recognized the shack from which she had emerged after P had given her back her computer. She nearly balked at the doorway, because the place looked in imminent danger of collapsing, but the way Black rolled his eyes at her reminded her so much of Harry that she pressed on.

Soon Hermione and Black were prying open a trap door in the basement of the shack and descending into a dark tunnel that widened into a gloomy antechamber. Black strode up to a keypad by a steel door and punched in a rapid series of numbers.

"Stupid bastards never changed the passcodes," he said with satisfaction.

They stepped into the white hallway Hermione had seen once before and turned into a vast laboratory filled with state-of-the-art equipment. There were microscopes and infrared lamps and plexiglass beakers lined neatly across steel tables. She trailed her hand along the edge of a tray of scalpels and glass platelets. She could see Riddle wielding them in her mind's eye; slicing into delicate slides and pressing his eye to the lens of a microscope to examine his findings. He would be precise, perfect. His eyes would be cold and hard as flint.

There was a small glass-fronted refrigerator behind the tray with a keypad in place of a handle. Hermione peered through the two-inch glass and saw petri dishes and a set of three beakers neatly marked with labels that read, "_Serum I_," followed by various serial numbers.

"Oh my God," said Hermione, clapping a hand to her mouth.

"What?" asked Black, darting glances back at the doorway as he approached her.

"Have you seen these before? You know, when you were at school?"

He shook his head. "Riddle must be working on something new. He was the only one who ever had the passcode to that icebox. It's got bullet-proof glass and everything. Nobody else could get in there."

Hermione jabbed at the glass, pointing at the labels on the beakers. "These have got to be biological weapons; the reason he rose so high so fast. He was already working at this at school. It's just... insane. _He's_ insane."

Black shrugged. "You already knew that."

"I—I mean I thought maybe—" Hermione looked down at her feet. These were dangerous waters. "How do you know we won't be found out?" she asked nervously.

"I've snuck in here before. 'S how I found out about project Nightingale. Riddle never told us about it, but I filched a computer from the equipment room and went through records—"

"Indeed?"

Hermione's blood froze and she turned around, slowly. P was standing in the doorway, shoulders squared in ominous anger. His face was still hidden, but Hermione felt him glaring daggers at her.

"We—we weren't—"

"Weren't thinking of the irreparable damage you might inflict if you were caught?" P said with cold fury, advancing on her. "Ah, and Black. I should have known I'd find you here. Just itching to be back in a straightjacket, are you?"

"Don't be a fool," Black hissed. "I'm not the enemy."

"We'll see about that," said P.

"No, wait!" Hermione cried as he made to leave, reaching for something in his pocket. He ignored her, so she made a mad swipe for his arm and missed, pulling back his hood instead. It fell to his shoulders, revealing a hooked nose and sallow face framed by curtains of limp, greasy hair.

Hermione gasped.

His hair was pure white. It looked surreal next to his relatively youthful features. Black let out a noise halfway between a laugh and a bark, and Hermione stumbled back.

"You're like me," she breathed. "You're from the future."

"Of course, you imbecilic girl," P said. "Did you think no one would follow in your footsteps? That you were unique?"

"What year do you come from?"

"My jump was made less than a decade after yours. The precise date is none of your concern."

"Well, I daresay this changes things," said Black with a savage sort of cheer. "I don't think we'll have any more talk of reporting me to the authorities, or I might just let your little secret slip."

"How dare you—"

"Does Riddle know?" Hermione interrupted urgently. "And the others?"

P's lips curled with distaste. "Riddle has known for a long time. He keeps his followers in the dark, obviously."

"But—But then... If he's seen your hair... I've got the same thing. He must realize about me as well!"

"Riddle has never seen my face. I keep it hooded. Our positions are extremely precarious, which you would know if you pulled your head out of the clouds and learned to take your situation seriously. We, the projects, were meant to be incognito. That was the reason for the code names. Nightingale, in your case. I was Prince. It is essential that you grasp the gravity of what you are doing."

"But you're letting Riddle use your equipment, your facilities!" Hermione burst out, stung by his condescension. "You know what he becomes. Why do it?"

"_Useless children_," P muttered under his breath. "Use the limited intelligence at your disposal, girl. Can you really not imagine why I can't tell you? Would you go parading around, announcing your knowledge of the future?"

"But—"

"Your recklessness, your selfishness, will bring disastrous consequences. You are _not allowed_ to put yourself in danger."

"Myself?" A trickle of suspicion wormed its way to the center of Hermione's mind. "How am _I_ in danger?"

P gave her a hard look. "Have you never bothered to discover what happened to Riddle's family? And the girl who died in the very bathroom where the entrance to this facility is located?"

Her legs wobbled and she leaned against a table for support. How had she failed to see it before? Something very much like betrayal threatened to bloom in her chest and she squashed it viciously, calling upon righteous anger instead.

"He killed them," she said quietly. "His father and Myrtle."

"I will say again," P told her. "You are not to put yourself in danger." He looked at Black with hatred that scalded. "This is far from over."

Myrtle Harwick. Riddle's own father. Myrtle. His father...

Hermione's head was pounding. She could feel a splitting headache coming on. She looked at Black's gloating smile, P's furious disdain, and felt lost.

000

Tom turned on the lights in the lab and watched Granger's expression closely.

Her eyes widened. She looked from one table to the next, carefully examining her surroundings. She darted a quick glance at him, then back at a tray of petri dishes near the back of the room.

"What is this place?" she asked with no shortage of awe.

She was good, he'd give her that. Tom supposed it was possible she had never been in this lab or any like it before, but the chances were slim. He had consulted with P without revealing any details, as soon as his suspicions had been cemented, and P had told him he knew nothing of the girl. Which meant she must have come from after P's time—beyond the year 1984, if P was to be believed. And Tom had taken certain strong measures to ensure that P was _very_ motivated to be truthful.

The point being, if she came from such a distant time, Hermione was almost sure to have seen this sort of technology before. She might even know of the existence of this very lab. Tom had been keeping track of her through the chip on her necklace every so often, and had seen nothing out of the ordinary in her movements. But he could not watch her all the time. And she was certainly hiding something. He shuddered to consider the possibility that she might be some sort of activist come to spy on the beginnings of biological warfare. The thought left a bad taste in his mouth.

"What are _those?_" She was pointing at the hazy LED lights he had left shining on the tray. She was either lying out of instinct, or to further some extremely daring, foolhardy scheme.

"Those aren't your biggest concern. This is a government sanctioned facility," said Tom. "The Secret Service disavows any knowledge of its existence, but they funded its construction. It's run by a man called Prince. He got Dippet's permission to build on what's technically Slytherin-owned land in exchange for adding the secret passageway we came through from the school as an escape route, in case of a bombing during the war."

"And you can just use it whenever you like?"

_I can do whatever I damn well please. _Tom turned his back to block her line of sight as he punched in the passcode to the refrigerator containing his most valued project. He took out one of the beakers, handling it with as much care as he would have done a grenade without a pin.

"Come here," he said to Hermione.

She obeyed, but threw him a furtive, angry sort of look that he attributed to her stubbornness about taking instructions. She had been holding herself differently around him lately, Tom realized. She had always been a bit high strung, but since the day he'd asked her to the ball it was like she was always waiting for someone to jump out at her with a loaded gun. It wasn't the sort of reaction to which he was accustomed, to be sure, but he decided firmly that it didn't matter. He only needed her at the ball so he could keep an eye on her in case she had a hidden agenda. It would hardly be passable for the Head boy to skulk in a corner all night checking GPS coordinates.

"What is that?" Granger asked as Tom placed the beaker on the table.

"The project you're going to assist me with," he told her. "This is Serum I—_I_ for Ignotus. That's Ignotus Peverell, the chemist. He was a student at Slytherin a few decades ago, way ahead of his time. He wrote a paper on the potential for commercializing genetic material." Tom paused briefly to see whether Hermione was following, but of course she was already nodding, eyes narrowed. "He posited that if genes could be modified in such a way that they could be proven to adopt characteristics that would never occur in nature, they could be submitted for patenting and licensing and no court would be able to refuse. Not for a few decades, until the law caught up to science, in any case."

"Of course, Peverell didn't have near enough the technology to put his theories into practice. The school confiscated his paper for being _subversive_ and _dangerous_ and kept it under lock and key. He was killed in the war."

"And how did you find out about all this?" asked Granger shrewdly.

Tom opened the opaque lower compartment of the beakers' safe and lifted out a sheaf of yellowing pages. "Slughorn gave it to me. He was Peverell's teacher, and he was keeping his paper for sentimental reasons or something."

"Is that the only copy?"

Granger's tone was completely innocent. She did not even seem that interested, and was busy examining the LED lights. Like a child with a shiny new toy; Tom wanted to roll his eyes, like he often did whenever he lowered himself to work with any of his classmates. Still, he was not entirely sure he liked her question, and he stored the paper safely back in its compartment and locked it away. He had programmed the keypad himself, and had never told another soul the combination.

"Yes," he said sharply. "That's the only copy."

She looked up. "I'm sorry, it's just... a lot to take in."

"I'm sure it is. But all this is just technology, it's nothing mystical. Considering the rumors of experiments that were going on during the war, on both sides..."

"Yes, I suppose. What do you want me to do? How am I supposed to help? This all sounds really dangerous."

Tom considered her. He teetered on the verge of calling her out on her secret, but he decided that now was not yet the right time. Lies could be very telling: the more she lied, the more she gave him the chance to zero in on her purpose.

"I'm trying to synthesize an enzyme that would alter the genetic makeup of cerebrospinal fluid so that it will contribute to the enhancement of neural pathways," Tom explained, and _thank God_, she didn't even blink. He hated repeating himself. "That's what this serum is. If it worked, it would fulfill the characteristics laid out by Peverell. I could have the original genetic code patented. But the organic material is resisting. It only survives for about a thirty-six hour period. What I need to do is—"

"Isolate the genetic material containing heat markers," Hermione completed, nodding. She looked troubled. He had assumed her irritating sense of morality might be an obstacle.

"If you're not up to it..." he said lightly to pique her competitive nature.

He thought she would snap at him, but instead she stared a little too long. He saw defiance and apprehension and curiosity, but he also caught a glint of that restrained eagerness he had witnessed in her gaze a few times before. A faint echo of the hungry way Bell and so many others looked at him.

It gave him a deep sense of satisfaction. Because he wanted her at his disposal. He did not think there could be any other reason.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked abruptly. "What's your end goal?"

Tom thought of the vision of the future P had laid out for him: success after success, breakthrough after breakthrough. What was his end goal? What did he _want?_

Everything.

"If genetic material could be privately owned, there would be no limit to the possibilities for research, weaponization, medicine," he said. "Down the line, people could be manufactured, cloned, redesigned and perfected. We're talking about the potential for _immortality_—"

She looked like she was about to be sick. "That sounds more like a world of horrible torture and abuse."

It was so small-minded of her to see things that way, so utterly boring and self-righteous and mundane. Tom was momentarily consumed with disdain for her lack of vision. But he controlled his expression and shrugged.

"I call it a world of progress."

"I call it barbaric."

"What are you getting at here?" he asked quietly, seething.

Hermione took a deep breath. "I've already agreed to help you. I owe you and I... I'm interested in this sort of thing. I just want you to know that I'm not going to support the kind of ends you're envisioning."

"You don't have any say in those ends, so that won't be a problem," Tom returned.

For a moment the look in her eyes turned to blazing dislike, a force that hit him like a physical impact. Then it was gone and she looked... sad.

He found he didn't want to look at her anymore.

"Girls' curfew is in an hour," Tom said. "I'll only just get you back in time. We'll continue this another day."

"When?"

"After the Ball. I'm covering the Prefects' rounds every evening this week while they get the event ready."

Hermione seemed immediately put off by his mention of the Ball.

"Try not to look so much like you're in intense physical pain during the Ball," said Tom, leading her out of the lab. "It's music and dancing, not being flayed alive."

She glared. "I like dancing, thank you very much. I just expect Umbridge and Dippet to find some way to make the whole thing completely outmoded and sexist."

"Oh, no doubt," Tom agreed.

She watched him out of the corner of her eye as they walked back to the school grounds, saying nothing.

The evening of the Founder's Ball was the warmest of the year so far. Tom prepared for the event like he prepared for most things: by raking a hand through his hair and throwing on a tie. It was not as though he could afford a suit, and no one would notice that his pressed black dress slacks were just the newest pair from his school uniform. The Hufflepuff girls went to great lengths to doll themselves up for this event, and all eyes would be on them.

He had arranged to meet Hermione in the entrance hall, but he was early, so he lingered by the staircase under the shadow of a statue. He could hear his classmates descending in twos and threes, grumbling about the dress code or exchanging notes on what they planned to do with their dates later in the evening. After a little while the hall was teeming, and girls began to arrive in simpering groups, and still no one had noticed Tom's presence.

"I told you, Madame Umbridge, the bag is not in my possession," came Dippet's hushed voice from above, and Riddle cocked his head up to listen.

"Headmaster, with all my respect, I'm afraid I simply don't trust the girl! Upon her arrival you particularly told me you had found some—_hem hem_—questionable items on her person."

"Ah, but as I told you, Headmistress, those items were turned over to the proper authorities. There is nothing to be done."

Dippet and Umbridge were having a swift, whispered argument at the top of the staircase, out of the other students' line of sight. Riddle strained to catch their lowered voices.

"So silly of me," said Umbridge sweetly, "but it sounds like you are omitting something, Headmaster."

"Madame Umbridge, I assure you— Ah, Professor Merrythought!"

Umbridge narrowed her bulging, pouchy eyes but ceased her interrogation. Tom leaned back against the banister contemplatively. That had been a _very_ interesting conversation...

Then there was a collective gasp through the hall and Tom straightened up to see Hermione walking through the front doors. Jaws dropped all around and students exchanged shocked whispers. He saw Romilda Vane gaping at her classmate in unflattering disbelief. Malfoy and Lestrange were grimacing as though they had been punched in the gut. Tom almost wanted to laugh.

She had cut off all her hair. It did not suit her, but that was hardly relevant. It took some kind of irritating courage, or madness, to walk into a ball wearing _trousers_ and hair sheared an inch from your skull. Her SPEW badge was pinned proudly to her collar, and she looked determinedly past the many faces turned in her direction.

Once the initial hilarity had worn off Tom felt rather annoyed. She would attract all the wrong kinds of attention if she kept making a spectacle of herself like this. He strode out from behind the staircase and greeted her with a nod, brushing his lips over the knuckles of her right hand. Her slight blush was more satisfying than it ought to be.

"You look nice," he said, and she rolled her eyes. Two hundred people watched with bated breath. "Listen, I have to open the ball with Farley. Head boy and girl, it's tradition. I'll find you after."

She nodded, and he made his way into the dining hall, which had been redecorated all in cheap silver draperies and paper ornaments. A sleek black stage had been erected at the front, microphone at the ready, and towers of champagne glasses stood at either side. The dining tables had been removed. Tom took his place on the left of the stage next to Farley, who was wearing a pleasing gauzy dress of green and silver, and imagined holding a lit match to the cheerful paper banners above his head.

"Ladies of Hufflepuff and gentlemen of Slytherin," said Dippet, stepping front and center and tapping the microphone nervously. "Three and a half centuries ago today, a remarkable man was born who leaves his mark on the landscape of the modern world. Salazar Slytherin has been..."

Tom tuned out the rest of the speech. He heard it every year. He looked around at the haughty boredom on his classmates' faces and felt a familiar burning resentment. This sort of event was probably commonplace for many of them. Certainly for those who came from high-ranking military families, which was most. Tom had never even gotten within spitting distance of a banquet at the orphanage.

"... without further ado, I present to you our Head boy and girl!" announced Dippet triumphantly, waving Tom and Farley along.

Tom bowed and offered Farley his hand, as a dark haired man swaggered onto the stage with his musicians and took the microphone from Dippet. The band launched into a waltz and Tom swung his partner across the dance floor, trying to keep his listlessness to a visible minimum. His eyes caught on Granger as he spun, and he noticed that she was watching the stage as if thunderstruck.

"I _know_," Farley whispered, noticing his interest and nodding in Granger's direction. "It's such a shame, isn't it? I want to help her, but I don't know how to explain to her that she's just embarrassing herself."

Tom raised an eyebrow. "Embarrassing herself?"

"Well, I mean, just look at her."

Tom looked. After a moment Granger seemed to feel his eyes on her and turned to meet his gaze. Something in her eyes would not let him go.

"I don't know, Farley," he said, barely listening. "You wouldn't look so bad in trousers yourself."

The Head girl looked unaccountably disturbed by his comment. He bowed to her again as the song ended and more pairs flooded the dance floor. Then he swept away to drag Hermione in front of the stage. He did not care at all for dancing, but rather enjoyed seeing the way her nerves seemed to spike dramatically when he placed his hand on her waist. The band crashed into a much more upbeat ballad, and she looked again at the singer in disbelief.

"Is that _Cole Porter?_" she asked.

"Yes, I think so." Tom shrugged. "Dippet was pushing for Irving Berlin for the fifth year in a row, but I think the student body put their foot down. Turns out Porter used to play cards with the calisthenics teacher, Bagman, or something."

"Oi, Riddle, are you going to let your boyfriend lead?" called a snide voice, and Dennis Bishop swung past, leering at Hermione.

Tom reminded himself to pay the Headmaster's office a visit some night and do some creative rearranging of Bishop's academic records.

Hermione had pursed her lips. She looked upset. Tom threw her into a dip without warning and lifted her up again, smirking at her gasp of mingled outrage and amusement.

"_When the little bluebird who has never said a word starts to sing spring_," crooned the singer. "_It is nature that is all, simply telling us to fall_."

"You _are_ beautiful, you know," Tom told her. It seemed like the thing to say while dancing at a ball. It was what girls expected. It just also happened to be true.

She shrugged in a vain attempt to conceal self-consciousness. "I couldn't afford to get beauty products and things from the village with Gemma and Romilda and the others. All my scholarship money went toward textbooks."

"Don't insult me," Tom said shortly. "I'm not talking about your face, I'm talking about you."

Her mouth fell open in surprise. Tom looked over her shoulder at the other dancers, unwilling to say anything else. He didn't want her to get the impression that she was too particularly special, not when she was already on the hook. He could feel it in the way she relaxed infinitesimally against him, and her hand tightened around his. It was a simple feeling, warm and entirely alien.

"_I'm sure sometimes on the sly you do it. Maybe even you and I might do it..._"

They were silent for a while, spinning effortlessly in time with the music. Tom could not help but notice that they seemed to be gleaning a disproportionate amount of attention from the rest of the dancers. Dirty glances were being thrown at Hermione from every corner. He could hardly be bothered to concern himself with the opinion of the sheep, however, especially not with Hermione's breath just brushing the side of his neck...

"There's a problem," she said quietly, very close to his ear.

_What? _

"I don't think so," Tom replied.

"No, _look._ Over there. Gemma and Lestrange are—they're fighting, I think."

She was right. The little antechamber between the entrance hall and the dining hall had been converted into a coat room for the ball, and Farley and Lestrange could be seen gesturing fiercely at one another between the coat racks, both red in the face.

The last time Lestrange had gotten in that foul a mood—Well, those two fourth years, Frank and Alice, had had to transfer schools, hadn't they? It had been an absolute pain for Tom to cover the whole thing up.

"Stay here," he said.

"No," Hermione said.

Tom gave her his best placating glare and strode away, but she followed behind him. When they were halfway to the coat room Lestrange threw his hands in the air and stormed out, and Gemma hung her head.

"I'll talk to her, you talk to him," Hermione suggested.

Tom wasn't about to take orders from anyone, but that had been his own plan. He nodded briefly and took off after Lestrange through the front doors. Dusk had swept across the grounds, painting the sky navy, pink and red and casting long shadows over the grass. Lestrange appeared to have vanished into thin air. Tom circled part of the way around the lake, peering through the trees, and found absolutely no trace of him.

Cursing, Tom tore off his jacket to dig through the pockets for his journal. He was just about to summon Lestrange when footsteps came trampling behind him and Farley appeared, out of breath and wild-eyed.

"Did you hear that?" she asked.

"What?"

"That—I—I thought I heard someone scream."

"Where's Hermione?" asked Tom sharply.

"I don't know. She tried to talk to me but I went back to the party. Then I felt bad so I stepped outside to look for her, and that's when I heard someone yelling."

"And what about Charles?"

"He was drunk. I don't know where he went."

Nothing, _nothing _about this was acceptable.

Then Tom heard the scream.

It was a drawn-out sound of pure panic that cut to the core and prompted his feet simply to start moving. There was no doubt: that was Granger's voice, damn her. She'd gone and gotten herself into trouble, precisely what Tom didn't need her doing. And if Lestrange was involved in any way he would fucking bleed for it. Tom figured that he was breaking into an all-out sprint back around the lake because he had to protect his investment; he'd put too much energy into maneuvering Hermione into his clutches to have it go to waste. But his thoughts took a rather simpler bent. _I don't want her hurt_, said a voice in his head. No caveat.

The thought that he wanted her safe merely on the basis of valuing her existence, independent of her merits as an asset to his plans, was unusual and a little unsettling.

Farley was falling behind, but Tom did not care. He heard a splash and squinted through the night to see Hermione thrashing in the lake a few yards from shore. A second small figure, almost like a child, appeared to be treading water and trying to drag Hermione further into the lake. It was impossible to distinguish the culprit from this distance. Tom dove in without hesitation. He barely even felt the icy sting of the water as he swam to Hermione's side at top speed. The second he got near, the indistinct figure tugging Hermione away disappeared beneath the surface. A moment later Hermione began to sink.

His arms found hers and he held her in an iron grip, pulling her to the surface with a mighty heave. She was barely conscious, her eyes drooping. Tom swam her to the lake's sodden bank and dragged her onto her back on the grass, holding her face between his hands.

"Stay awake," he commanded. He had no intention of giving her a choice. "Keep your eyes open."

Her head lolled dangerously from side to side when he let her go to retrieve his jacket from where he had thrown it aside before diving into the water. He removed his journal and wrapped the garment around her shoulders, which were almost blue with cold. She was trembling violently.

Farley arrived on the scene and immediately kicked up a useless racket, screaming like a banshee. At that rate she would have the entire school rushing to their side.

Hermione coughed up a little water and at long last her eyes opened by a sliver.

"What...?" she said blearily. It came out a croak.

What indeed? As soon as he had satisfied himself that she was in no immediate peril, Tom turned to peer at the lake. Tiny pinpricks of light were beginning to dust the night sky as the stars emerged, affording just enough illumination the scan the lake's surface from end to end. There was no aggressor in sight.

"Is she all right?" asked Farley, who seemed to have regained possession of her senses, finally.

"She's fine," Tom replied. In fact, after a jump through time, this was probably one of Granger's tamer misadventures.

"What happened?"

"Someone tried to drown her."

Farley clapped a hand to her mouth in horror.

"Right about now is when you'll want to remember your Head girl training," Tom suggested, wanting to get rid of her. Granger's breathing was shallow and her hand had found his somehow.

"I—I'll get the teachers and set up a patrol around the lake." Farley departed with one last petrified look over her shoulder.

Tom almost wished Granger's attacker would come back. Adrenaline was coursing through him, and he felt like breaking someone's neck.

"You _are_ all right, yes?" he inquired.

She managed a small nod. It was uncomfortable to see her so subdued and frail. The attitude seemed foreign now that he knew her, thoroughly unsuitable.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Coat room. Someone... hit me over the head from behind. Dragged—" she coughed and closed her eyes briefly. "Dragged me. Out to the lake. Head under water for a minute or more. Didn't see who."

Her voice was wavering in and out, but the pressure of her hand on his remained constant. Tom felt no compulsion to pull away, which in itself was strange.

"Thank you," Hermione added in a voice barely above a whisper. Another violent shiver rolled over her. The water really had been freezing: Tom could feel his limbs going a little numb.

A mass of babbling voices was rising in the distance—the oncoming mob of panicked students and staff. Tom tugged his coat more tightly around Hermione and picked her up. She fit perfectly in his arms. She watched him as he began to walk the rest of the way around the lake, and he thought she looked at once vulnerable and unafraid. It occurred to Tom that he had here a perfect opportunity.

"I know your secret," he told her quietly.

She continued to rest her head in the crook of his arm for a moment, until she seemed to realize exactly what he had said. Sheer, unadulterated fear invaded her gaze.

They continued to stare at one another as he carried her all the way up to the Infirmary.

000

The sprawling webwork of corridors that made up P's underground facility put Hermione in mind a little of a maze. She trod carefully across immaculate tiled floors, counting her steps, memorizing the layout of the place down to the last overhead light fixture. The lab Riddle had showed her, and the corridor without, had only been the tip of the iceberg. It took Hermione a little over three hours to locate the room she had materialized in when she had traveled through time.

The machine at the MI5 facility had presumably employed Saul Croaker's principles of predictive space-time tractability to propel her into the same exact geographic location on earth in 1946 that she had vacated in 2013, otherwise she would have ended up in the vacuum of space while the earth continued its rotation around the sun elsewhere. Thus she had reason to believe that this facility must be a forerunner of the one she had visited in her time.

Not her time anymore. The constant mental stutter-step hurt bitterly.

If Hermione could gain some insight into the workings of the facility in the current era, perhaps she could begin to decipher P's cryptic hints about how she had been 'sent' here because she had a 'role' to play.

Gingerly, wincing at the soreness her movements elicited, she took out her mobile phone. It was worthless as a communication device, but the camera was still in good condition. She photographed every inch of the place, jumping at small noises. When she heard a metallic clinking that turned out to be her watchband brushing against a doorframe she screamed and nearly jumped out of her skin.

Her nerves were in a state of absolute collapse. It had been bad enough before her attack, feigning lightheartedness and dancing with Riddle after finding out about Myrtle and his father. She had looked up Riddle's family in the library, of course. The information she found supported P's claims: not only Riddle's father, but his grandparents as well, had all died under mysterious circumstances. After the incident in the lake, despite Hermione's adamant protests, everyone from the Headmaster down to Gemma had insisted that she spend the remainder of the week in the Infirmary. She had lain on a hospital cot that night fighting sleep for hours, expecting Riddle to turn up and throttle her the moment she closed her eyes.

His hands pulling her out of the lake. His voice summoning her back to consciousness. His arms holding her, carrying her across the grounds. And then...

_I know your secret._

He had not said another word, and she had been too exhausted by her near drowning to give voice to the panicked babbling that had gone through her head. He had left her in Dippet's hands with curious gentleness, and it had not been until she sun had come up that she had convinced herself that he was not coming back to exact some sort of evil retribution. Not yet, anyway.

And now there was the added concern of who in God's name had tried to drown her in the lake.

Hermione had waited until the bell for first period rang through the school. When she knew for certain that Riddle had to be giving a presentation on Alfred Russell Wallace in Slughorn's class, she had crept out of the Infirmary and made her way down to the lab through the visitors' bathroom.

Her head ached. Her throat was raw and dry and her limbs felt unnaturally heavy.

When the memory card on her phone was filled up, she slipped back up to the Infirmary and fell into uneasy, restless sleep. She dreamed of cold, dead hands pushing her into the lake, and Riddle pulling her out.

Gemma and the other girls came to pay her a visit that afternoon after last period.

"The teachers had every bit of the grounds searched last night," Gemma confided while Romilda and Mary exclaimed loudly over the _dreadful _lace trimmings on the curtains. "And the police have been alerted. But there's been no sign of the person who attacked you."

"Did you _really_ not see what he looked like?" asked Katie eagerly.

"Or she." Hermione shook her head. "They attacked me from behind. It was somebody short, I know that much. But I never saw their face."

"Well they won't get far," said Gemma. "No one ever does. They caught Hagrid for the Myrtle thing in about two days."

Hermione's stomach squirmed uncomfortably. That poor boy, wherever he was, did not deserve to be thought of as a murderer.

"Hermione, I meant to say, I'm sorry," said Gemma suddenly.

"What?"

"You ended up outside because of the fight I had with Charles. It was stupid—he was drunk. I wish it hadn't happened."

"Don't even think about it," said Hermione. "It wasn't your fault."

Gemma looked at her intently for a little while, then lowered her voice and said, "So, what about you and Riddle?"

"What do you mean?" said Hermione, perhaps a little too quickly.

"Just... he pulled you out of the lake and everything, and carried you up to the school. You should have seen the look on his face when he heard you scream."

"There's nothing going on between Riddle and me," said Hermione adamantly. "Trust me. I don't go for that sort of... He's just not my type."

Strictly speaking, this was not at all true. Hermione wished she could forget the way her stomach had been tying itself in pleasant knots while they danced. Riddle was a dangerous habit: he was raw charisma and intellect and infinite potential. He was a shot of novocaine to the head. She had no intention of letting him sink his claws into her any further, never mind the insistent little voice in her head that pointed out how tragic his story really was, all things considered. The bottom line was that he had killed. More than once.

"Are you sure he knows that?" Gemma asked. "I mean, you _do_ see the way he looks at you sometimes..."

Hermione was saved the trouble of coming up with an evasive answer when Katie gasped loudly, staring at the front page of the _London Gazette_. The girls converged on Hermione, gabbing excitedly.

"Hermione, there's a piece in here about you!"

"And a picture—Oh, it's not half bad..."

"They spelled your name wrong, the morons."

"Read it! Read it!"

Hermione took the page Katie was waving in her face and examined a blurry photograph of herself that appeared to have been taken from a distance while she walked around the lake on her way to class.

"_The dangers of subversive youth: could your community be at risk?_" she read out loud. "What in the world...?"

"Er, it's not very—Maybe you shouldn't," Katie muttered.

But Hermione jerked the paper closer. "_You've heard of Susan B. Anthony, Harriett Tubman, and Jane Addams. But the descendants of the suffragettes, it seems, are emerging younger and younger onto the so-called 'feminist scene.' Our writers can report exclusively that Hermionine Granger, senior student at Hufflepuff Preparatory School for Girls, is known to have been inciting sentiments of 'women's liberation' among classmates. Granger's unsanctioned organization, S.P.E.W., is believed to have objectives of placing a greater number of women in parliament_."

"_In light of the radicalism known to affect many 'women's liberation' advocates, parents of Hufflepuff students may well be wondering how this will affect their children. Our reporters have looked to law enforcement for the answer, and come away with frightening results. This morning local sources informed us that an unknown attacker accosted Miss Granger outside a school function and attempted to cause severe injury. Families are advised to inform their daughters of the dangers they bring upon themselves by becoming involved in subversive social movements_..."

Hermione threw the paper away from herself, breathing heavily. She had never read anything so mind-bogglingly absurd in her life. But more importantly, she did not like to see her own name in print, even misspelled. She was not supposed to exist in this time frame. If anyone from her future ever stumbled across a copy of the _Gazette_...

"Well," she said through gritted teeth, breathing deeply to calm herself, "I suppose if that's the best they can do."

"Don't let it get to you," said Romilda. "That paper's a bit old fashioned."

"Yes, none of us blame you, Hermione," Mary added. "But perhaps it's for the best, you know..."

Hermione frowned. "Perhaps what's for the best?"

"Well, that it stops now before things go too far. This whole S.P.E.W. thing was bound to get you into trouble anyway."

"Oh, I'm not _stopping,_" said Hermione loftily. "I've only just started. They'll see."

The girls exchanged concerned glances.

"Hermione—" Gemma began.

"I'm going to need more buttons," Hermione cut her off fiercely. Her tone was such that no one contradicted her.

000

The graveyard outside the little church in the village near Slytherin College was populated by crumbling headstones and skeleton trees whose branches rattled in the north wind. The train station was situated only a quarter of a mile away, so that every now and again a great metallic rattling shook the ground as a steam engine rolled by. A solitary figure stood by a row of marble crosses at the far end of the graveyard, winter cloak flapping raggedly and head bowed. Tom Riddle approached with the silent gait of a predator, enjoying the way the other man's shoulders tensed when he realized he was being watched.

"Looking in on your family?" Tom asked. "Sentimentality won't serve you well, Prince."

The man said nothing. Tom often found himself profoundly irritated by P's intractable calm. The way his voice rose smooth and unwavering from beneath that ever-present hood made it impossible to truly tell what he was thinking. It had taken far too long to locate his weakness. Tom glanced at the nearest pair of headstones, which were marked Sarah and Lyle Evans.

"Ah," he said quietly. "So you aren't here for your family, you're here for _hers_. Making sure that I've held up my end of the bargain." Prince shifted a little, and Tom knew he had struck a nerve. "Well, there's no need. You have no reason to fear my going back on my word. Not unless you've done something to prompt my displeasure, that is."

"Perhaps we had best concern ourselves with the girl you've been mentioning," Prince finally spoke up. His empty brand of condescension made Tom's blood boil. "Hermione Granger."

"_The girl_ is none of your business."

"She was attacked. It was in the papers."

"Yes, and I have no intention of letting it happen again. She may be able to tell me a great deal more about my future than you have."

"I have told you everything," Prince interrupted. "Every task you have required, I have performed."

"And yet it took me months, initially, to extract any sort of cooperation from you."

"As I told you, secrecy is paramount in these matters. The situation is delicate."

Tom considered Prince for a time, then looked back at the headstones. He had his leverage, and that was enough to leave him secure in the knowledge that he was pulling the strings.

"I want you to put me back into contact with Hyrcus," he said. "And arrange for a car as well."

Prince did not nod. He did not acquiesce in any way. He merely began to walk in the opposite direction.

"I want it done quickly," Tom added without raising his voice. His words echoed through the graveyard, carried off by the wind.

* * *

**A/N:** I tried absurdly hard to fit a dragon into this chapter, but it just wasn't happening. Clearly I have huge issues with subtlety. Thank you so much to reviewers: **Ziwen, XxCupCakeLoverxX, TheLightningScar, Kiera-House MD, Cecilia Hart, Beserked2, kieli13, Marian, Alaia...**

1. Saul Croaker is named on Pottermore as an Unspeakable who spent his life researching the principles of time travel.  
2. If there are any neuroscience enthusiasts reading this... eep. Let's just pretend that wasn't all utter nonsense, mkay?  
3. The epigraph is from Dr. Seuss.  
4. You can google the word Hyrcus. That's your clue for the week.  
5. Update: I killed the spider.


	5. v

_v – she's got jumper cable lips, she's got sunset on her breath;  
i inhaled just a little bit, now i've got no fear of death_

000

Tom considered letting Hermione stew in the Infirmary for a day or two, to give her ample time to work herself into a nervous wreck. In the end, however, he decided this tactic would probably not work on her. Also, he did not want to give her time to come up with a convincing lie, if that was her plan. He waited until her friends had left for dinner to pay her a visit. She was lying on her side, staring out the window.

"I have your homework here," he said. She jumped, looking badly startled. "I assumed you wouldn't be able to rest until you could catch up on all your coursework."

She did not smile.

"How did you know?" she asked.

Tom placed her homework assignments on her bedside table and took a seat.

"The man I told you about, Prince," he said. "He's a time traveler too."

The weight of his words hung between them.

"What are you going to do now?"

"Now, I suppose, I'm going to listen to what you know of the future," said Tom, measuring his words carefully. "And then we'll continue working on the project in the lab."

She looked taken aback. Her mouth opened and closed incredulously.

"Don't you have the information you need already?" she tried. "From this Prince person?"

Tom raised one eyebrow. He wasn't going to make it that easy for her.

"Prince is from... before my time?" she muttered. He could almost see the gears turning in her head. "Which is the twenty-first century," she added.

Twenty first? She was from the next fucking _millennium_? Tom's blood pumped a little faster, clamoring for more information. He gripped the edge of the chair.

"Year?" he said, unable to restrain his eagerness.

She bit her lip. "2013."

That seemed a plausible enough timeline. "Then you can give me three decades' worth of information that Prince can't. Start. Now."

Hermione went very still.

"Prince is from the 1980's?" she said slowly. She looked at him carefully for a moment. "Let me guess: 1984?"

Tom nodded, relieved that her story coincided with what he knew from P. He wouldn't really fancy forcing the truth out of her.

"What aren't you saying?" he asked, his eyes never leaving hers. "What happens in 1984?"

"Nothing," she said quickly, holding his gaze. "Just... time travel was invented."

"By?"

"The—The Soviets... Big Brother."

Excellent. Now that he had established her truthfulness, he crossed his arms behind his head and looked at her expectantly.

Hermione took a deep breath. "The twenty-first century... you can't really imagine unless you've seen it, but it's a different world. People can communicate from one end of the planet to the other instantly, project images of their faces across continents in real time. The human genome has been mapped. Exploratory missions have landed on Mars."

Part of Tom wanted her to get on with it and tell him about his own achievements. But another, surprisingly tenuous part was content to sit, rapt, and listen to her speak about events to come. There was a quiet wonderment in her tone even as she talked about things that were no doubt commonplace in her time. She understood the world, saw connections where others didn't. She was awake where others stumbled around, somnambular, knocking into walls.

"And... Prince has told you about Walpurgis Incorporated?" she went on. Tom nodded. "Well, it's gone on growing and growing. It's a multi-national corporation that holds a virtual monopoly over the agricultural sector, and it's all down to you."

"I've no doubt."

"You haven't figured out immortality yet, though."

Tom repressed a grimace. "This doesn't explain what you're doing here."

"It was an accident," she said, sounding tired. "I broke into a government facility and ended up on the site of a demonstration in time travel. I had no intention of coming here."

"You broke into a government facility? Are you some kind of activist?"

"No, I'm a student. I was being recruited by the secret service. I was on a tour of a facility and I... got curious."

Tom sat back and let out a deep breath. God, she was a refugee, a bloody _castaway_. She was alone. His for the taking. It was too easy, everything was always too easy.

"Your turn," she said unexpectedly.

"What?"

"I've just told you everything about myself. It's your turn. I want to know how you found this Prince character and why all your classmates act like your little minions and—and... everything."

He smiled. "It doesn't work that way."

"Like hell it doesn't," said Hermione angrily. "I've done nothing but help you and be cooperative—"

"Whereas all I did was save you from drowning."

"I—" she faltered. They exchanged a tense look. "You didn't see who it was, did you?"

Tom shook his head. "Your attacker? It looked a little like a child."

"That's what I thought but... They didn't seem to _move_ like a child. It was someone stronger but frailer at the same time, if that makes sense."

"It doesn't." Tom stood and tapped his fingers against her homework. "Don't worry, Hermione. No one can get to you in here, I guarantee it." She did not look at all convinced. He sighed; time to begin drawing her back in. "My classmates obey my commands because they know they'll reap the rewards in the future. They'll be the first investors in Walpurgis Incorporated, make millions. Prince was sent here to protect me from anyone who might try to alter my timeline. Everything is perfectly under control. Get some rest, and when Dippet has decided you're well, we'll get to work."

He turned to leave but paused in the doorway. "You might want to drop the _London Gazette_ a line, by the way. They spelled your name wrong."

The glare she sent him could have scorched empires to the ground.

He had a little over an hour before he had to begin his rounds, so Tom made his way back to the senior dorms, his mood climbing even higher. When he was alone he took out his journal and pressed the button on the device inside that would make his classmates' tracking chips burn. If they did not all present themselves within five minutes...

Dolohov arrived almost at once, followed by Malfoy and Lestrange, then Crouch and Black, and finally those sixth year imbeciles, Carrow, Crabbe, and Goyle. He tolerated them only because they were filthy rich and their fathers had died in Normandy.

"Good evening," Tom said, letting his eyes linger on each of them in turn until a chill ran through the circle. He nodded at Malfoy, who closed the door to Tom's room at once. "I hope you've finished your duties for the day, because I've called you here for a... well, let's call it a disciplinary hearing, shall we?"

The boys exchanged frightened glances and a few eyed the door as if they hoped they might be able to slip away unnoticed. No such luck.

"The name of this hearing," Tom went on without raising his voice, "is: Lestrange, why, precisely, was Hermione Granger nearly killed within a few yards of your drunken person on the evening of the Ball?" He paused to let a chilling silence sink in. Lestrange's eyes were wide with horror. "Haven't I explained to you all before that Granger is important? Invaluable, even?"

An uneasy murmur ran through the room. Lestrange stared down at his feet.

"_Well?_" Tom said impatiently.

"I—I'd had too much to drink," Lestrange stuttered. "I was headed down the path to the old gardens. I was halfway to the other side of the lake before I even heard anyone struggling, Riddle, I swear. I had nothing to do with it. There was nothing I could have done to help—"

"On the contrary," Tom said. "There's a great deal you could have done. Namely, not drinking yourself into a stupor over some meaningless dispute with Farley. Not wandering off without informing me first. Any of those would have done just fine."

"It was—She didn't—Granger's fine, isn't she?" Lestrange asked desperately.

"She is, no thanks to you. I shouldn't have to repeat myself: Hermione Granger is important. I _will not_ have her compromised."

"Why?" Goyle's deep, rumbling voice interrupted. Imbecile.

"She's important because I say so," Tom snapped. "That's all you need to know. And Lestrange, since you don't seem prepared to present any more of a defense, I suggest we move right along."

Lestrange clenched his jaw. He never pleaded, at least. That was a point in his favor. Tom preceded him out of the dormitory and led the way down to the lab through the bathroom. Once there, he opened the sealed refrigerator, unwrapped a fresh syringe, and extracted a small dose of the newest version of the serum. Lestrange held out his arm, looking very pale. He had never served as a test subject before: it would be interesting to see if his immune system reacted as violently as the others.

"Don't move," said Tom.

He readied the syringe, and the needle pierced flesh.

000

"I don't understand, what is this rally about?" Hermione whispered, looking around the dining hall at the hundred girls gathered together during what should have been the start of second period.

"It's the Inquisitorial Squad," Katie explained in an undertone. "Once a month Umbridge brings us all together to share our feelings and talk about anything that might be bothering us. Conflicts between friends. People who might have been lost in the war. Things like that."

"Yeah, but most of the time it just turns into an hour-long session of the younger years ratting on each other for sneaking out past curfew," Romilda added, rolling her eyes.

Hermione would be willing to stake her life that the Slytherin boys didn't have to sit through this kind of nonsense.

"I think I'd rather go back to staring at walls in the Infirmary," she muttered.

Gemma sniffed. Hermione clapped a hand to her mouth, cursing herself.

Charles Lestrange had been brought in to the Infirmary just as Hermione had been discharged, convulsing horribly with his eyes bloodshot and a sickly sheen of sweat coating his body. Hermione had watched in dismay as the curtains were drawn around his bed, unable to rid herself of the suspicion that Riddle must have had something to do with it. Much as she disliked Lestrange, her stomach turned over at the thought.

"I'm so sorry, Gemma," said Hermione. "I didn't mean—"

"It's fine," said Gemma grimly, not looking at her. "He—It'll be fine."

"Good morning girls!" Umbridge called them to attention, stepping up to the front of the hall wearing a truly horrific dress of turquoise and baby pink taffeta.

"Good morning, Professor Umbridge!" a hundred voices trilled back, well practiced.

"Well, we've got a lot to talk about today, haven't we?" said Umbridge sweetly. "Now, last meeting some of you told us about how you missed your mothers and fathers and looked forward to seeing them at Easter. Today I'd like us to talk about something just a teensy bit more serious. Gemma, dear, would you come up here and help me hand out the pamphlets I've had made up?"

Sighing, Gemma threw Hermione a darkly significant look and made her way to the front of the hall to begin passing out little pink leaflets. Umbridge's toad-like smile widened.

"After the dreadful incident at the Ball," said Umbridge, aiming a vomit-inducing little wink of commiseration at Hermione, "I had these drawn up to help keep my girls safe. As you read, I'd like you to give some thought to what each of you can do to prevent such—_hem hem_—incidents from happening."

Hermione took the pamphlet Pansy Parkinson handed back to her and flipped through it with disdain. Each page contained an illustration of girls wearing vapid smiles and blank expressions, followed by a list of points intended to help ward off "ill-intentioned gentlemen."

_Always travel in groups of three or more..._

_Retire at least one hour before dark..._

_Do not visit areas where suspicious persons might happen to be lurking..._

Hermione raised her hand.

Umbridge ignored her for as long as she possibly could before finally relenting and saying, "Yes, Hermione, dear?"

"There's nothing in here about learning self-defense," said Hermione loudly.

"Self-defense?" Umbridge repeated, her flabby face contorting into a very ugly smile. "Why, dear, this is not a boxing College. This is not _America._ Why on earth would you imagine we would teach you such unladylike practices?"

"Because it seems a bit backwards to teach us to limit ourselves," said Hermione. "Not to go where we want to go, when we want to, just to accommodate people who might want to hurt us. Wouldn't it be better to teach us to fight back?"

"I'm afraid it isn't up to you to decide what is 'better,' dear. I am trying to foster a feeling of safety, free from—_hem hem_—subversive influences, and—"

"But if people want to attack us they're going to do it whether we hide indoors after dark or not, so wouldn't it be better to just—"

"Enough, Hermione dear, that's quite enough! I won't have any more backtalk—"

"—give them a good kick in the—"

"Detention!" Umbridge exclaimed triumphantly. "I'm sorry, dear, but I'm afraid I'm going to need you to come here and take this detention slip from me."

The hall had gone completely quiet. Every pair of eyes was darting between Hermione and Umbridge. Gemma was standing stock still by the doors, gaping openly. Hermione got to her feet and walked stiffly to the front to take a little violet slip from Umbridge, struggling to hold in her outrage.

"You can go wait for me in my office, dear," Umbridge told her. "I'll be right with you when the rest of us are done having a _civilized_ discussion."

Hermione stomped out of the hall without another word, passing Gemma, who continued to gape, and Romilda, who gave her the smallest of appreciative winks. She reached up to pull ruefully at her hair as she made her way to the head's office, then remembered her new, brutally short haircut. It still felt odd to run her fingers through it. She pulled restlessly at her S.P.E.W. pin and kicked at a stone pillar.

"_Honestly!_" she said angrily to the empty corridor.

The portraits on the walls, of course, did not talk back. She was alone with her distress. Fuming, Hermione flung herself into Umbridge's office and flopped into a chair, crossing her arms tightly.

Riddle would tell her that she was making life unnecessarily difficult for herself. That there were better ways of going about this. Oh, but for heaven's sake, what did she care what Riddle would say?

Umbridge made her wait, of course. Hermione sat with nothing but her own steadily mounting anger for company for nearly an hour, until she heard shoes clacking against the wooden stairs and saw the door swing open. She hastily arranged her face into the least scornful of grimaces she could manage.

"Well, now," said Umbridge with revolting sweetness, "we've worked ourselves into a bit of a tizzy, haven't we dear?"

Hermione said nothing. She did not trust what words might come out if she opened her mouth.

"I think we'll start with a bit of an exercise in self-restraint to cool ourselves down, shall we?" Umbridge strode behind her desk and picked up what looked like a regular wooden meter stick. What, was she going to lecture Hermione on maths or something?

"What would you like me to do?" Hermione asked, making every effort to inject remorse into her tone.

Umbridge's smile turned positively ghoulish. "Oh, nothing onerous, dear. I'll just be needing you to place your left hand on my desk with the palm down, please."

"Er... why?" said Hermione, complying dubiously and looking at the desk for some indication of purpose.

"Why, no, no, dear, that is not how to begin. You've been asking far too many questions, I'm afraid. I've been trying to teach you that a well bred lady does not blurt her every thought. She speaks her mind only when asked, and then, with deference to her betters. But I'm sad to see that the message hasn't sunk in at all. So we're going to try something a teensy bit more practical."

Out of nowhere, Umbridge lifted the meter stick into the air and brought it down on Hermione's fingers with a sharp _crack_. The pain was immediate and overwhelming. Hermione shrieked; she could not help herself.

"What the _hell_ are you—" she began, pulling her hand away, but Umbridge caught her wrist and forced her palm back down onto the desk.

"A lady does not _curse_," said the Headmistress, bringing the meter stick down again with her other arm. _Crack_.

Hermione screamed.

"She does not _yelp_." _Crack._

Hermione screamed.

"She speaks when _spoken_ to." _Crack._

Hermione screamed.

Ugly red welts were appearing across her fingers and knuckles. The pain had brought hot tears to her eyes and she tried frantically to blink them away. Little darts of agony pulsed through her hand in time with each beat of her heart. At last Umbridge drew back, her expression grimly satisfied.

"Now, now, that won't do, will it?" she said, waving the meter stick like a mother reproving a fussing toddler. "So silly of me, but I thought I made it clear that I was trying to teach you to quiet down, dear."

"You can't _do_ this," Hermione exclaimed, struggling in vain to rip her hand away. "It's barbaric! I'll—I'll report you!"

"Might I asked who you plan on reporting to, dear?" asked Umbridge innocently.

Evil. She was bloody _evil_.

She was also right, Hermione realized. There was no one she could go to. Physical discipline was not yet taboo in this era, and she had no family to go to. No parents to contact the administration on her behalf.

"Failure to complete detention is met with expulsion, dear," Umbridge went on softly. There was a hideous eagerness in her tone that made Hermione's stomach roll. "Now, we're going to try this again. And this time I hope you'll learn to hold your tongue, hmm?"

She brought the meter stick down again. And again, and again. After a while it came away stained with a little blood, and Hermione did learn, indeed, to hold her tongue. But first, for a long time, she screamed.

She expected many things when Umbridge finally let her go. Hermione thought that her dorm mates might squeal in horror if they saw the state of her hand. She thought they might lament her broken nails. _Anything_. That was why she covered her hand with a sleeve, desirous of avoiding a fuss. But to her everlasting astonishment, when she sat down to dinner that evening, Romilda immediately turned to her with a sympathetic grimace.

"Did she take the meter stick to you?" she asked knowingly.

"Wh—What... She's done this before?" said Hermione, eyeing the head table nervously.

"Sure, it's happened to us all once or twice. In primary school sister Catherine used to take a strap to my backside... Well, anyway, Umbridge got me pretty badly once when she caught me stealing my knickers back out of Alan Black's room. It'll stop stinging in an hour or two."

Hermione frowned. An hour or two? It was more likely she would regain the full use of her hand in a _month_.

"Oh, she got me _really_ badly once when she caught me cheating on a Latin test," Katie chimed in sympathetically. "Hit me at least eight times, I thought I was going to cry."

Hermione tucked her hand further back into her sleeve. It was clear that the girls thought she had only gotten a few sharp raps on the knuckles, which was apparently the common way around here. She saw no reason to disillusion them. Somehow, Hermione felt that she had gotten herself into a deeply personal battle of the wills with Umbridge. She would not give the Headmistress the satisfaction of hearing that Hermione had gone crying about her punishment all over the school.

"Well if she thinks it's going to stop me, she's got a nasty surprise coming," Hermione announced. "What I need to do is find an alternate voice for my side of the story. Something to contend with the _Gazette_ and Umbridge."

"Don't you think you've gotten yourself in enough trouble already?" said Gemma.

"Detention isn't going to stop me from doing the right thing," said Hermione haughtily.

"Well, I suppose you could try the _Quibbler,_" Katie suggested.

Romilda laughed obnoxiously. "You're not serious? Loony and Longbottom? Hermione doesn't want to be laughed out of the school."

"They're not that bad," Gemma scolded.

"What's the _Quibbler_?" asked Hermione.

Gemma made a face. "The joint Slytherin and Hufflepuff student paper. Dippet and Umbridge only let the editors carry on with it because Neville Longbottom's parents were heroes in the first Great War, and his grandmother gives the school heaps of money."

"Neville's nice," said Katie. "The girl's the really dotty one. Luna Lovegood. She writes all the opinion pieces and Neville formats them and puts them in because he's in love with her or something, probably. Anyway, they'll publish anything. Loony sits over there with the sixth years."

Hermione looked where Katie was pointing and saw a wide-eyed blonde girl with a pile of uncooked radishes on her plate. The wide berth the other students were giving her did not inspire confidence. But a student paper would be almost the perfect venue for Hermione. Not influential enough to pose a risk of etching her name into past history, but sure to get the attention of the student body. Ignoring the others' exasperated muttering, she stood and joined the blonde girl at the sixth years' table.

"Hello," said Hermione, extending her hand. "I'm Hermione Granger."

The girl turned protuberant eyes on her slowly.

"I know who you are," she said. "You were attacked by a plesiosaur the other night."

"Er," said Hermione, thinking confusedly of prehistoric sea monsters. "Not exactly. Anyway, it's nice to meet you. I was wondering if you might be interested in running a story about my organization, S.P.E.W., in your student paper."

"Oh, I don't know," said Lovegood. "We've got a big article about mirrorlings coming up. That's sure to take up quite a bit of space."

"Mirrorlings?" Hermione repeated, beginning to regret this entire venture.

"Oh yes, my daddy's told me all about them! He works for the _Daily Mirror_. Mirrorlings are clones the Nazis developed to follow you around and pull all your secrets out through your ears and nose. When you go through a great trauma, like electroshock, a mirrorling pops up and attaches itself to you."

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," said Hermione flatly.

"That's what most people have said," replied Lovegood serenely. She eyed Hermione with something like vague appraisal. "_You_ have some mirrorlings after you, you know. They're closing in."

"Right. Well, listen, never mind. This was probably a bad idea any—"

"But I could fit your story in next month, I'd imagine," Lovegood interjected.

Hermione hesitated. "Er, well... I suppose." As she got up to leave the younger girl's eyes fell to her hand, only partly covered by her sleeve.

"Oh, you had detention with Umbridge, didn't you?" she said, nodding. "Yes, the same happened to me after I told my Etiquette class about the spider webs in the sky."

"I—What?" Hermione was almost afraid to ask.

"Daddy explained it all to me. Some day there's going to be a great invisible web that covers the whole world, and people will use it to send each other mail and watch films and things." She paused to pop a radish into her mouth. "It was very nice to meet you, Hermione Granger. No one's ever sat with me before."

Hermione returned to her seat completely flummoxed.

No one else seemed to notice the welts on her hand until the following week, when she was finally allowed to check out of the Infirmary permanently and resume the normal flow of her classes. She sat down next to Tom in first period Evolutionary Biology and began to remove her books from her bag one-handed, her ill humor mounting each time she had to fumble with the straps.

"Welcome back," said Tom quietly, barely looking up from his desk. The fact that she had never seen him take notes once made Hermione want to scream.

"Thanks," she said shortly, smoothing out her notebook and scribbling the date in the top corner. Tom watched her, and a frown creased his brow.

"You're moving differently," he said. "What is it?"

Hermione stared. "What—How could you possibly—"

"You got yourself detention with Umbridge, didn't you?" he interrupted. "Let's see."

She twitched her hand away, but he was faster. He captured her wrist and pulled her sleeve back deftly. When he saw the mess Umbridge had made of Hermione's fingers, his eyes widened. He pressed his lips together and clamped his fingers more tightly around her arm, and for a moment he looked rather distraught.

"What?" said Hermione, taking the opportunity of his uncharacteristic lapse in composure to pull away.

"I just—That looks bad. Far worse than her usual. She must really hate you."

"Yes, well."

"Soak your hand in warm water for twenty minutes at night, then cold water for ten. It'll heal faster." He said it without hesitation, as if he were speaking from experience. When Hermione looked at him questioningly he shrugged. "Used to get much worse from the matron at the orphanage. She broke three of my fingers one summer."

_But what did _you _do?_ Hermione wondered.

"I'm taking you out for a little trip to the country next week," Riddle said, changing the subject abruptly.

Hermione's eyes narrowed. "I don't know who you think you're talking to, but I didn't hear an invitation just now. I heard an order."

He looked at her for a few moments with something almost predatory in his gaze. Then his face smoothed out and he nodded briefly.

"Hermione Granger," he said with a hint of amusement, "would you like to accompany me on a trip to the country next week? I've arranged for a day pass for us both."

No, she would not like to. She would not like it at all. Or rather, she knew that to do so would be a very bad idea. The prospect of going anywhere alone with Riddle was a frightening one. He could do anything; snap her neck, bury her body where no one would ever find it. Unfortunately, these were far from the only scenarios Hermione's mind was capable of constructing with herself and Riddle _alone together_. She bit down on the inside of her cheek very hard as a distraction, furious with herself.

"Where would we be going?" she asked quickly.

"Somewhere public and crowded, don't worry," he said, as if he had just read her mind. In an undertone he added, "And if you try to make a run for it and disappear, of course, I'll find you. Just so we're clear."

Hermione snorted, but privately she reflected that there was hardly anywhere for her to run to. What could she do, recruit a band of thugs and try to off Riddle before he ever rose to power? Even if she thought she might have the fortitude to go through with it—which she didn't—there would be no sense in even trying. Riddle's path was already set. Nothing she could do would change it.

Also, she had to admit that she was a little curious to know where he planned on taking her. And how. Her question was answered the following Saturday, when Riddle turned up at the door to her room wearing a dark coat that became him absurdly well. He led her out into the courtyard, where she found a sleek black De Soto parked by the front doors. Tom stepped to the front passenger's side to open the door for her, looking much too satisfied with himself.

The thing looked like a bloody film noir hearse.

Hermione eyed him suspiciously as she sat down. She smelled leather and dust and chrome. He circled the car and sat down next to her in the driver's seat, turned on the engine, then looked all around. Hermione frowned.

"Well, how do you make it go?" he asked after a moment.

Hermione gaped at him. Was he having a laugh? But then it hit her... of course, no one was exactly lining up to offer orphans driving lessons. If he came to school by train, it was possible he had seldom even been inside a car in his life, let alone driven one.

"All right, get out," said Hermione, trying not to let an exasperated sort of grin break across her face.

"Excuse me?" said Riddle, looking affronted.

"Get out and switch places with me."

"I can drive the bloody thing myself, thank you. I just need to know which pedal—"

"Oh for heaven's sake. You may be Slughorn's favorite prodigy but you can't learn how to drive in five minutes. Get out, get out!" She shooed him away with forceful gesticulation to emphasize her point. At last Riddle complied with ill grace, and they exchanged places. "You just give me directions, and I'll get us there."

He did not bother pointing out that she did not have a valid license, which she appreciated. She was willing to bet that he did not have one either.

The antiquated car was a bit of a nightmare to get into gear, but once she had gotten it running Hermione was able to drive along smoothly enough. It gave her a petty thrill to realize that she was definitely, quantifiably better than Riddle at something.

"Left here," he told her as they pulled up to the road leading away from the grounds.

"How did you manage to get us a pass?" Hermione asked, flooring the gas pedal and barely getting them up to fifty miles per hour.

"I told Dippet we were going to bury your parents."

Hermione snorted. "Shameless. And where are we actually going?"

"To bury your parents."

Hermione slammed on the brakes. "_What?_"

"You want to watch what you're doing."

"There's no one else on the road. What do you mean, we're going to bury my parents? My parents aren't even born yet. You know that."

"Exactly. If you're going to be staying here, presumably it would be a good idea to make your backstory verifiable to anyone who might go looking. You don't want to go attracting attention because you aren't supposed to exist, do you?"

Hermione had no retort. She started the car down the road again, staring straight ahead and fuming. She had thought of doing this herself, but if she was being honest, she had not known how to begin going about setting this kind of thing up. Of course, Tom _would_ have those sort of connections.

"And why do you want to help me with this?" she asked after a while, because the silence that had settled between them had a charged quality she did not like.

"Because I don't want you carted off by some government idiots. You're going to be of great use to me. Walpurgis Incorporated is going to need subsidies, and attracting funding through legitimate channels takes an annoyingly long time. I'm assuming there are lottery numbers and sporting results and other things of that nature stored away in your brain somewhere."

"I'm not going to help you cheat your way into easy money!" said Hermione, outraged.

Tom looked more amused than ever. "I didn't suggest we murder an old lady and steal her family fortune. What could possibly be wrong with playing the odds in our favor?"

"It's—It's dishonest. It's stealing."

"It's seizing an opportunity. Left again here."

Hermione did not know what to say. She had already given Tom the impression that she was interested in his work, in helping him and partnering with him. She had done it because she did not feel she had much choice, but also because she had thought, vaguely, that she might be able to infiltrate his operations in some way. Even if she could not halt the course of the future, perhaps she could gather insider information on the workings of Walpurgis Incorporated. She could take this information to the government, or communicate it with the future somehow. Eventually. So what point was there in acting like she wouldn't go along with his plans?

"I never watched many sports, or played the lottery," she said in a rigid voice. "But there's money to be made in stocks, to be sure."

Riddle smiled. _God_, that smile.

Slowly, the countryside morphed into a string of small villages around them. Riddle directed her to the exit for a town called Hazel Grove. They parked in front of a questionable looking establishment with a blackened sign that read _Grimmauld Pub & Inn_.

"We're meeting a man called Hyrcus," Tom informed her as they exited the car and made their way into the smoky, crowded pub. Bluesy music rumbled out of a jukebox in the corner, and waitresses with hard, cold eyes strode between tables carrying teetering drink trays. "_Don't_ mention the name."

"Hyrcus?"

"It's a type of goat. The one whose fleece they use to make cashmere. Bloke got into some trouble with the law about something to do with goats a few years back, and the nickname stuck."

"What does any of this have to do with my fake parents?"

"You'll see."

Tom led her to a booth in the back corner, where a stoic, bearded man in a ratty brown coat was waiting for them.

"Riddle," he said gruffly as they took a seat. Eyeing Hermione and looking none too friendly, he added, "Who're you, boy?"

"I'm Hermione Granger," said Hermione, mildly offended.

"Girl, eh? What'd you go and cut off all your hair for, then?"

"Hermione's a revolutionary," said Riddle in a restrained tone. "I'll have a neat scotch," he added to the waitress who had just stalked up to their table.

"Nothing for me, thanks," Hermione began to say, but the waitress' eyes flashed dangerously. "Er. Ginger and wine?"

"Been missing you on the circuit," Hyrcus told Riddle. "Borgin keeps asking after you, and Hepzibah Smith won't shut up, neither."

"I've been rather busy," said Riddle expressionlessly.

Hyrcus grunted. "I hear you need some documents."

Riddle nodded. "Birth certificate, primary school transcripts, passport, death certificates for the family. The whole package. Hermione here needs a bit of a new start. I'll transfer the money to you from the Malfoy account this time."

Hyrcus seemed to take all this as a matter of course.

"I'll need your fingerprints," he told Hermione, pulling an inkpad and a folded piece of white cardboard paper out of his pocket. Darting nervous looks all around the pub, Hermione pressed her fingertips against the spongy surface of the inkpad and left her fingerprints on the blank paper.

Their drinks arrived, and Hermione immediately took a sip of hers, fearful that the waitress might actually shove it down her throat if she didn't. Hyrcus slapped a pile of dollar bills onto the counter before any of them could protest, and Hermione was secretly grateful. All she would have had left to barter payment with was her silver-plated watch, and the thing was roughly sixty-five years off track.

"We'll look into some unclaimed war casualties for the graves," Hyrcus said.

"Brother killed on D-Day, father in the Blitz," Riddle listed off. "Mother... let's say the Blitz as well. Freak accident, should have stayed indoors. Hermione, you'll want to memorize that."

Hermione gave him a look of disdain. "I already have. I know the history of the second world war inside and out."

She took another drink of wine to avoid meeting Hyrcus's curious gaze. It was sweet tasting stuff, and it made her feel pleasantly warm.

"Aunts? Uncles? Grandparents?" asked Hyrcus.

"Dead," said Hermione at once, before Riddle could speak. "They all have to be dead."

There was definite interest in Hyrcus' eyes now. Hermione took another deep swig from her drink.

"Let's say grandparents dead in the first great war," said Riddle. "One uncle, shipped off to America last year, never heard from again. That should do it."

Hermione coughed and waved the smoke from her face. Riddle eyed her drink, more than half empty. His own was untouched.

"We'll be going now," he said. "I'll be in touch through the usual channels after I've arranged for payment."

Hyrcus waited until the young man and woman had left before rising and making his way to the bar. There he picked up the receiver on the telephone bolted into the wall, dialed, and waited while it rang.

"Yes," he said when someone picked up on the other end. "Get me Prince. Now."

The cold outside air hit Hermione like a brick wall.

"Oh," she said, suddenly rather unsteady on her feet. "I can't drive yet."

"What?" Riddle rolled his eyes. "Yes, fine. I'll drive. We're supposed to be back by nine."

Hermione had not realized how late it had gotten. The sun was already beginning to sink across the horizon.

"You can't—"

"I can," Riddle assured her. "I was watching you."

And as it turned out, he was right, damn him. Hermione slid into the passenger's seat and he drove them out of the car lot, imitating her movements and obtaining a much smoother result. His apparent ease made Hermione want to throw something.

"So that's it?" she said. "One little meeting, and I've got a whole new identity?"

"For two hundred and fifty dollars, yes."

In 1946, that really was a lot of money, Hermione reflected. In 2013, for some people, it was practically pocket change.

Her head was spinning. Hermione rolled down her window a little and watched the sunset paint streaks of gold and crimson across the sky, letting the wind rush past her face. By the time they arrived back at the school the effects of the drink had almost entirely worn off. Riddle parked the car a little ways from the front gates of Hufflepuff and turned to her.

"Thank you for a lovely outing, Miss Granger," he said with liberal amounts of irony.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "You don't _own_ me now, or anything. I'll repay you the two hundred and fifty dollars as soon as I graduate and get a job."

"I'm sure you will."

"And if we're going to go to such lengths to ensconce me in this world, I want a say in how the research progresses."

Riddle shook his head. "You're helping, Hermione, but don't make the mistake of thinking you're in charge. I work alone. That's just the way it is."

"Why? Are you really so arrogant that you can't trust anyone else to do satisfactory work?"

"Something like that."

"You don't trust anyone not to betray you and take the research elsewhere," Hermione realized. "That's it, isn't it? You're just paranoid, and you can't admit it's a hindrance."

It was not at all wise to be speaking to him this way, a voice in her head pointed out. This was a boy who had killed for his secrets before. This was a boy with no remorse. Yet the car was warm and comfortable and it smelled like a mixture of his skin and hers now that they had been driving for several hours: soap and salt and pine and something surprisingly sweet. And Hermione could not bring herself to feel threatened. The grounds were slumbering. There was only the quiet, delicate current that always seemed to run between Riddle and Hermione, suddenly amped up to a much greater degree in the confined space of the car.

"I could never betray you," she said quietly. A sort of half-formed plan was coalescing in her mind.

"Oh, and why is that?" asked Riddle cynically.

He had tilted his head to the side a little, and was looking at her as though he were waiting for something. And what the hell, Hermione thought, she only had a three year window anyway, thanks to Prince's ridiculous cover story. When Orwell published 1984 in three years she would have to disappear no matter what, because Riddle would know. And no, perhaps she couldn't change the future, but she could do good work, like Black had said. Enact progress. She could gather all the information she could possibly get her hands on and leave it for someone else, down the road, to take down Walpurgis Incorporated.

And a small, selfish part of her had other very different reasons for wanting to follow through with her plan.

So Hermione kissed him.

She meant to press her lips to his only for a moment or two, to make her point about trust and devotion and all such pretty lies. But a tremendous current ran through her when their lips met, and the world went dark for a moment. Then, out of nowhere, he was leaning forward and pulling her closer and she was parting her lips and trembling, and they were fumbling, pulling, shoving, _fighting_. She had certainly lost her mind. He tasted exquisite. Hermione had begun to lean over as if to climb into his lap when she accidentally knocked her elbow against the steering wheel, and the car horn went off.

The blaring sound jolted her violently back to reality, and she jumped back. They stared at one another, breathing heavily.

"Whoa," Hermione murmured. "I mean..."

Where had _that_ come from?

"Yeah," Tom agreed. He looked, for once, as dazed and baffled as she felt.

"I—I'll just be going," she stammered, fumbling for the door handle. "G—Good night."

She practically sprinted away from the car. She did not hear it driving away for a long while, and wondered whether Tom was staring after her.

This was mad. She had not bargained for this. Hermione did not know if she could trust herself to continue spying on Riddle's operations when she kept being overcome by these bouts of insanity. She was not _falling_ for Tom Riddle, that was not _feasible_, that was _not_ what was happening. But she could admit that she was much more drawn to him than she'd anticipated. How could she justify feeling so hot and cold and shaky when she intended to spend the next several years plotting the demise of his life's work?

She could walk away, Hermione realized. She could simply start walking and vanish into the night. She resisted the idea, but what choice did she have? She was not a coward. Leaving would have nothing to do with running from her fears. Rather, she was beginning to grow concerned by the idea that Riddle had kissed her back just as feverishly. That was not the way to kiss someone you were simply trying to manipulate into giving you their loyalty. Not possible. Could he be going through the very same struggle that she was?

But in that case, where was she in the history of his life? Hermione had studied him and never read a single word about herself, of course not, she would have thought she was mental if she had. Tom Riddle had never married. Tom Riddle had never formed any serious attachments whatsoever.

Wouldn't that suggest that she _had_ left? It had already happened.

For once in her life Hermione was compelled to act impulsively. She had to do it now, or she would never go through with it. There was no time to waste in returning to her room for her things—what things? None of them belonged to her. Her heart beating a mile a minute, Hermione squinted at the dark grounds and gritted her teeth. The worst of winter was already past, and her coat would suffice for the night. She could find work in some office or pub in the morning and decide how to proceed from there. Surely Black might be able to help her disappear.

Hermione started to walk down the path to the opposite end of the grounds, towards the village.

Almost at once, a loud beeping noise issued from her pocket, frightening her out of her senses. She scrabbled to pull her phone from her pocket, where she had forgotten that she had stowed it in case she needed to take pictures of anything.

Someone was trying to video call her. How was that possible? They would have had to know that she had a phone, and that it was on, and _then_ they would have had to hack in and connect her to the Slytherin network...

She pressed the button to accept the call. Prince's face appeared on the miniature screen.

"W—What's going on?" Hermione asked, her voice tearing through two octaves at the sight of him. There had been too much already, too much to deal with all in one day.

"I have a message for you from Albus Dumbledore," said Prince in his usual calm, disdainful drawl.

"_What?_" Albus Dumbledore, her former Headmaster? How was that even possible?

"Stay where you are."

"I'm not moving!"

Prince sneered. "No, you stupid girl. That is the message: 'Stay where you are.' Do you think you can manage to follow it?"

"I—I—" But Prince was already gone.

Hermione let her arms fall to her sides and her shoulders slump. As if she hadn't had enough upheaval already for a lifetime, let alone a single evening...

_You were going to be the youngest MI5 recruit in history_, Hermione told herself sternly. _You can work this out. Focus._

Albus Dumbledore was the one, in fact, who had recommended her for the government position after reading her paper about the evils of Walpurgis Incorporated. Hermione had always had a great respect for her Headmaster, who was rumored to have prevented a new, deadlier revival of the Manhattan Project led by the German physicist Grindelwald. She did not consider herself privy to the workings of Dumbledore's mind in particular, but she had never been able to shake off the impression that he watched her keenly sometimes. Dumbledore's position as a whole seemed nebulous and all-encompassing. He ran Gryffindor College, but also sat on the board of governors at Oxford and made frequent appearances in parliament.

And now he was sending her messages from the future.

The only possible, rational explanation Hermione could come up with was that she had lived long enough to seek out Dumbledore back in 2013 and given him a message, which he in turn had communicated to Prince. Perhaps she had not wanted—_would_ not want—to contact Prince directly, because to do so would run contrary to the established sequence of things. Which meant that Prince came from some time not too far ahead of her own.

Hermione's head was beginning to hurt again.

One thing was certain: she could not leave now. It would be beyond foolish to ignore a direct warning from _herself_. She felt angry, restless—and especially, she felt trapped. But sense won out, as it usually did.

She could hear Tom driving around to the Slytherin grounds as she turned and trudged back to the Hufflepuff front doors. She was not tired. She wanted to run until her legs gave out, read until her eyes screamed for relief. But most of all, Hermione wanted to follow that car, and the boy inside it.

"Hermione! Oh my God, where have you been?"

Hermione did not think she had it in her to fake enthusiasm about another ill-advised engagement or, God forbid, somebody's new idea for knitting patterns. But as Gemma, Katie, and Romilda came sprinting into the entrance hall their expressions began to appear downright alarming. Gemma's hair was flying, and she looked frantic.

"We've been looking _all over_ for you!" exclaimed Katie. "Umbridge is in your room. She found some sort of... device under your floorboards, like a little computer."

Hermione froze.

"It's nothing dangerous, is it?" asked Gemma urgently. "She's saying it is. She's saying she can expel you for this."

_Stay where you are._

"Hermione, this is really serious," said Katie.

"And there's something else, too," Romilda added, looking unusually grim. "We found out who leaked information about your attack in the lake to the _Gazette_. It was Mary. She's been informing on you to Umbridge this whole time, telling her when you snuck out past curfew and things. That sneaking little b—"

"I know," Hermione interrupted.

"What?"

"I worked it out a little while ago, after I missed my appointment to help her with her homework and Umbridge was waiting for me when I got back."

"But—But then... Why haven't you done anything about it?"

Hermione could not help a small smile. "Oh, I did. You'll see. Let's go, we might as well get back to the dormitories and see the damage."

Exchanging incredulous looks, the girls followed Hermione up the stairs to the dormitory wing. They did not make it far. Umbridge was waiting at the entrance to the seventh year girls' corridor, arms crossed, and behind her... Romilda guffawed as Mary Edgecomb came into view. Her entire face was covered in ugly purple splotches that had run and spread as tears trailed down her cheeks. Hermione had borrowed an iodine-based chemical stain from the lab and put just three drops into Mary's face cream the night before.

"Well!" trilled Umbridge, supremely triumphant. "I see my appeals to Dippet were for good reason! What do you have to say for yourself, _dear?_"

"Nothing," said Hermione, cringing internally. She could not see any way to get out of this besides brazen defiance.

"Nothing?" Umbridge repeated, her pouchy eyes bulging alarmingly. "_Nothing?_"

"I can't imagine what you're talking about," Hermione replied.

"I am talking about the—hem hem—highly dangerous objects I discovered in your room, my dear! Foreign technology... all sorts of bizarre little _buttons_..."

"I have no idea what you mean. Clearly someone must have left whatever you found in my room before I moved in. You can't possibly prove that whatever you've found is mine."

Umbridge's entire face seemed to sag in on itself, and all the air to puff out of her lungs. She moved her mouth stupidly without speaking for a moment, but recovered herself almost at once.

"That is all very well, dear, but if you have nothing to hide I wonder how you explain the horrendous, unprovoked treatment of Mary, here?"

Hermione glanced dubiously at Mary. "Er, I don't really understand, Professor. Is there something wrong with her?"

"Mary has told me of your attack on her personal property. And I will inform you, dear, that you had best not even try to deny it, because I found the iodine stain in your room myself."

How would she get around _that_ one, Hermione wondered? It was imperative that she avoid getting herself thrown out of school.

Then, to her astonishment, Romilda strode forward and lifted her chin defiantly.

"It wasn't just Hermione who put that stuff on Mary's face," she said, sending Mary a vicious look. "I helped."

Gemma gasped, but after a moment she too stepped forward. "That's right. And so did I."

"Me too," Katie added. Hermione gaped at them, overwhelmed.

"Oh, and in fact, Fleur and Gabrielle were in on it too," Gemma went on. Her voice was trembling a little, and she seemed to have been emboldened by the general spirit of rebellion hanging in the air. "And so were Daphne and Pansy. Wake them and ask them if you like. I'd like to see you expel half the senior class three months before graduation. What would the board of governors think?"

Umbridge looked as though she had been struck over the head with something very heavy. Gemma nodded with satisfaction and, turning her back on Mary, led Hermione and the other girls away down the corridor. By the time they arrived at their rooms they had broken into a run, holding back slightly hysterical cackling. Somehow Gemma and Hermione flung themselves into Hermione's room together and collapsed on the bed, shaking with silent laughter.

"That—That was brilliant!" said Hermione. "But you didn't have to do it."

"'Course we did," Gemma replied. Her eyes were flashing with some breathless excitement Hermione had not seen before. "Mary broke the most important rule. We stick together. You're one of us now, Hermione, and I never thought I'd say it but all this—mad stuff about women's education and organizations... it's _exciting._ You've really changed things around here. And it's better."

Gemma turned to her, cheeks flushed, chest rising and falling rapidly.

"You're not like anyone I've ever met," Gemma said to Hermione. And then she leaned forward and kissed her.

Hermione was so taken aback that for a second she did not react, and Gemma's hand found hers and she wound their fingers together. Then Hermione's brain caught up to her. Reacting instinctively, she pulled back and flattened herself against the wall, eyes wide.

Gemma's face fell tremendously.

"Oh no," she said, clapping her hands to her mouth. "Oh no, no, no. Hermione I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, please don't tell."

"What?" said Hermione, more bewildered than ever.

"I just got carried away, I wasn't—I shouldn't have—" There were tears in Gemma's eyes now. She looked distraught. "I'm s—sorry!"

"Stop," said Hermione firmly, gripping Gemma's hand tighter. "Please, just calm down. You have nothing to be sorry for."

Gemma hiccoughed in horror. "I _do!_ It's—It's _wrong._ Please, please say you won't tell anyone."

"Of course I won't, if you don't want me to. But you don't have anything to be ashamed of, Gemma. I just... I do like you as—as a friend. I thought you were with Lestrange..."

"Oh, Charles isn't—We have an arrangement. He doesn't really... Well we put it about that we were going out together at the start of the year. Just dropping hints, and things. That way we're both free to—I mean—"

Finally Hermione understood. "You're covering for each other? So Lestrange doesn't like girls..."

She had the tact not to ask who Lestrange _was_ interested in, though she was rather curious. Gemma seemed to understand from her expression.

"Who do you think?" she said, brushing the tears from her cheeks.

Something clicked into place in Hermione's head. "Tom."

Gemma nodded. "Hermione, you _won't_ say anything, will you?"

"No," Hermione assured her. "But there's _nothing _wrong with you, Gemma. There's nothing wrong with what—or _who_—you want."

Gemma slumped down next to Hermione, leaning her head back against the wall. They sat that way for a long time, hands still laced together, and eventually they fell asleep. Gemma's head fell onto Hermione's shoulder as outside the window the moon climbed high across the night sky. When morning came Hermione was awoken by the chirping of birds to find that a copy of the _London Gazette_ had been slid under her door as usual. She squinted at the headline across the room, and her heart stopped.

_MANCHESTER FUGITIVE SIRIUS BLACK CAPTURED AND RETURNED TO FACILITY FOR THE MENTALLY DERANGED._

000

**A/N:** Many thanks to** love-warmth-life, TheLightningScar, Mechanical Orange, Atlantean Diva, Classical Deconstruction, Alaia, krook, Squidly...**

1. The beginning quote is from 40 Day Dream by Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros. (Oh god she's quoting pop songs now, what next?)  
2. I'm a terribly self-indulgent writer sometimes. If you're not into Orwell, you might have to google him to understand anything about that first scene (although who didn't have to read 1984 in high school, really?)  
3. School is a cruel mistress. It might take me a bit longer than usual to post the next chapter. Bear with me.  
4. The Daily Mirror is (as I understand it) a famous British tabloid, for those of you not aware. Hazel Grove is a real place.  
5. Don't drive without a license. In fact, don't drive at all, it's stressful and awful and everyone is always texting. Don't even ride a bike. Barricade yourselves indoors and retreat from the world. (And now the weather.)

Cheers!


	6. vi

A/N: Yeesh, sorry for the massive delay. Senior year is a soul-sucking bitch. Warning, the sciencetimes are about to get waaaaaaay abstract in this chapter. Bear with me.

* * *

_iv - If I were a cinnamon peeler I would ride your bed and leave the yellow bark rust on your pillow..._  
_You could never walk through markets without the profession of my fingers floating over you._

oOo

Granger was staring at Lestrange. She wasn't even being subtle about it. All through third period on Monday, while Slughorn lectured animatedly about selective genetic mutations, her gaze kept drifting over to him with infuriating regularity. Tom had no idea what to make of it. He brooded that it would have been better if Lestrange could have stayed in the bloody hospital wing. He looked for any trace of longing in Granger's eyes, any shy feminine preening, and boiled with rage any time he thought he detected a trace of anything less than flat out boredom.

But of course, when had Hermione ever behaved like a shy, wilting violet? The other night in the car, for example...

He asked himself why he was so concerned. He was Tom Riddle, an island unto himself. The man behind the curtain, directing masses too stupid to even know they were being put through their paces for his benefit. The answer, of course, was that he had realized quite recently that Hermione was _his_. It was odd to feel so overwhelmingly proprietary over another person, where normally he focused his attention on groups at large, places, ideas. Then again, regret had never been Tom's strong suit. Granger was a diamond in a sea of coal. It only made sense that he should want her for his own. No reason to shy away from the idea.

"Now, now," Slughorn boomed, cutting into his thoughts. "Today we're going to be having a little friendly competition."

Tom sighed and twirled his pen between his fingers, unconcerned. Slughorn did this every year. No one but Tom had ever won.

"I have just this past week spoken to E.B. Ford, an outstanding lecturer at Oxford University, who has been supervising the progress of a most intriguing experiment. Under his tuition a number of entomologists led by Kettlewell, of whom we spoke last class, have been conducting a study of the evolution of melanism in peppered moths. Their findings are as yet unpublished. According to Ford and Kettlewell, there may be a connection between the pollution of urbanized areas and the coloration of localized moths. You can see here on the blackboard a more detailed summary of their research. You are to formulate a thesis as to the imagined outcome of their research. The student who comes up with the hypothesis most closely matching the results Ford shared exclusively with me will be the winner."

Child's play. Tom continued to survey Granger, not bothering to retrieve any scrap of paper from his bag. She was pursuing her textbook, but her eyes were unfocused, trained on a fixed point on the page. What the hell was going through her head?

No less than forty minutes into the lesson, Hermione finally wrote a neat six lines at the top of the single page laid out on her desk. She did not even bother to make various attempts or scribble out rejected sentences. Obviously, Ford's was an experiment which became well known in the future. No matter. Tom's own hastily scrawled hypothesis would not fail.

"Time's up!" Slughorn called genially shortly afterward. He passed over the majority of the other students' answers with a look of amused resignation until he came to Tom's. "Outstanding as ever, m'boy!" he announced. "Some ingenious theories here, to be certain. And you have correctly guessed the outcome of the experiment. Indeed, the peppered moths did see a darkened wing coloring in response to the darkening of the trees upon which they roost, as a result of the abundance of soot caused by over-pollution. Yes, yes, excellent work."

Then he came to Hermione's desk. His eyes widened.

"An answer following Ford's observations almost word for word!" Slughorn exclaimed. "My, my, never have I seen such succinct, advanced work. It seems for the first time in the history of this contest, we have a tie!"

Tom's thoughts surged savagely at once. _Should have been mine_. It was unacceptable, the way this girl kept matching his achievements. It was also undeniably impressive. Something would have to be done.

"Your reward will be admittance to a little soiree I am giving on the first weekend of term following Easter holiday," Slughorn informed Tom and Hermione, beaming. "Many of the most notable scientific names of the day will be in attendance. I need not emphasize, I think, the opportunity to make useful connections. I have every confidence you will make the most of it."

Hermione looked thrilled. The rest of the class groaned, accustomed by now to the Riddle-and-Granger-appreciation-hour the class had devolved into.

When the bell rang Malfoy and Black, who were engaged in an enthusiastic debate wholly unconnected with the class, threw Hermione covert glances.

"Oi, Granger," Malfoy hissed across the room. "_Granger_."

She gave him a look of withering contempt. "What?"

"Is it true then? About Umbridge?"

Hermione sighed. "If you're asking if she's left the school, then yes, it does look that way."

"The way I heard it, she walked right into the forest," Dolohov interposed. "Middle of the night. Vanished and didn't come back until morning. What did you bints even _do_ to her?"

She did not deign to answer.

"Good riddance," Malfoy muttered, shrugging. "My father's on the board of governors. He wrote and said they deemed Umbridge unfit to come back and run Hufflepuff. Well, and you know old McGonagall, the head of the board, has been gunning to get rid of Umbridge for years..."

"Yes, but what'll happen to Hufflepuff now?" said Dolohov.

"Who cares?"

"If the board of governors finds out anything funny happened to Umbridge and decide to close the school, they might look more closely into goings on at Slytherin as well," said Black with a darkly significant look at the other two, as if to say _Use your damn brains_.

Hermione sped after Black when they all filed out of the classroom. Tom stayed ten paces behind them, pretending to stare into the middle distance and listening carefully.

"Black," Hermione called. "Wait."

Black halted without turning around, his shoulders tense.

"I assume you've heard about your cousin?"

"That he's a raving lunatic?" said Black. "Or that he's back where he belongs?"

Hermione's face fell. "He... Do you really know for sure that he's mad? When was the last time you spoke to him?"

"Keep sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong, Granger. See where it gets you."

"But I was thinking that perhaps if a family member could write to the hospital where they're keeping him—"

"You need to stop asking questions," Black hissed. Tom felt certain that he knew he had an audience.

Hermione watched him stride away, looking crestfallen. Tom grasped her sleeve before she could walk off.

"Going back to Hufflepuff for lunch?" he asked, and she nodded. "I'll walk you."

She did not meet his eyes. They walked side by side, acutely conscious of the current that passed between them whenever their arms touched. It was unnerving how her proximity robbed him of the ease of speech he had always taken for granted. Was he imagining the warm, paralytic dart that shot straight to his chest every time she glanced at him sideways?

This was absurd.

"You won't be able to do anything for Black," he said to break the silence, and not because he cared in particular one way or another. "I remember him from a few years back. He was a reckless sort. Not especially bright. You're wasting your time."

"Waste of time, is it, to try to help someone who needs it?" Hermione replied, surprisingly fierce.

"Obviously, that's what I mean."

She stopped at the edge of the Hufflepuff grounds to look at him in earnest. Her eyes burned him a little.

"You think you're so far above everyone," she said quietly. "Too good to bother with anyone who can't help themselves, no matter if they deserve it or not. But where does that leave you? Alone at the top. What's the point in an empire if only you can appreciate it?"

He was about to make a scathing retort when they caught sight of Lestrange passing through the trees on the opposite bank of the lake. Hermione looked quickly between him and Tom, her expression indecipherable.

"You're awfully terse today," Tom remarked. "What happened to _I could never betray you?_"

"I can care about you and still think some of your actions are despicable," Hermione replied, though she sounded torn.

"So you do care about me."

She quirked an eyebrow. "What are you getting at?"

A sudden breeze blew back the sleeves of her overlarge jacket, revealing the fading welts on her left hand. Something deep inside Tom clenched.

"Are you mine, or not?" he demanded brusquely.

Her mouth opened in amazement. He had not meant to put it quite that way, but hell, if he found out there was anything between her and Lestrange, he would make that jumped up General's son bleed. Never mind that Lestrange was devoted and useful and moderately talented. In this case, somehow, it did not _matter_.

"Are you... asking if we're going out together?" said Hermione in a choked voice.

"Given what happened the other night, in the car, it seems logical..."

"Forget logical for a minute. You asked if I'm _yours_. What—What does that even—"

"You've been eying Lestrange an awful lot," Tom said before he could help himself.

She gave a slightly hysterical laugh. "I was just—He... I was curious. He seems very loyal to you. More than the rest of them."

"He's always been useful." Tom shrugged. "I kissed him once in fifth, to make sure of his allegiance. He seemed rather stuck on it for a while. But that was years ago. He's got something with Farley now."

"Right," said Hermione vaguely. "Of course."

"Jealous?" Tom ascertained, gauging the curious, faraway look in her eyes. She came back to earth and chewed her lip, apparently trying to hide a small smile. It was sort of remarkable, that ever-present pull between them. "So you _are_ mine."

"I suppose."

Tom indulged in a rare smile. Her expression was overwhelmed, like someone cast out abruptly to sea, struggling to keep their head above the tide. It was priceless, if a little troubling. She was torn, but it was clear that she was head over heels for him. And about time; Tom never failed to accomplish something once he set his mind on it. She continued to look at him. It occurred to him that she might be waiting for something.

"I don't have a ring for you, or anything," he said bluntly. Best not to let her expectations run away with her.

Now Hermione looked downright incredulous.

"You don't—I'm sorry?"

"I know it's the common thing. But I haven't any money to buy one, or any family heirlooms to pass on."

"You think I expect an _engagement?_" she practically shouted. "That's—That's just... I'm seventeen! I'm not even out of school and you're—you're—"

"All right, all right," said Tom, placating. "Well then, that's... that."

Ought he to be alarmed by the violence of her reaction? Perhaps all women in the twenty-first century were independent to the point of downright shrewishness. It hardly mattered. She had said the words. She was his. It would all come to right, because she was his and all that she accomplished, all she worked for, came back to him, and he finally had her.

_Mine._

He scooped her up impulsively and kissed her in the early afternoon sun. She tasted every bit as miraculous as before. Stubborn and shrewd and soft and lively, she was intoxicating. He could go on and on and on doing this. He could get lost in this...

A panoply of girlish shrieks rose from the nearby gardens. Vane and Bell and a number of others went sprinting out of the bushes, throwing gleeful looks over their shoulders and whispering behind their hands.

"I suppose we're saved the trouble of having to tell anyone now," said Hermione dubiously. "I'd better get to lunch."

Tom pulled her by the arm and swiveled her back to him before she could go, kissing her again. Because he could. Because it was exquisite. For fuck's sake, he wanted to undress her in the middle of the schoolyard, onlookers be damned. When had that come to be the state of affairs?

_Mine._

oOo

"You could have told us!" Romilda reprimanded her severely. "_Tom Riddle_. And you didn't say a word!"

"I knew it was bound to happen," said Katie sagely. "The two star students, the two star-crossed—"

"Yes, yes, that's all very well," interrupted Hermione, amused. "But you've got your elbow in the butter dish."

Katie was saved the trouble of spluttering in embarrassment by the arrival of Gemma, who sat across from Hermione and carefully avoided meeting her eyes.

"It's official," she said in an undertone. "I've just been told by the administration. Umbridge has done a bunk. The shock of our... er, our mutiny was too much, it seems. Of course, _they_ don't know that. She's been sacked for inappropriate conduct."

"What do you think will happen if they find out why she left?" asked Katie fearfully.

"They're _not_ going to find out. We stick together. No one talks."

"What's going to happen to the school in the meantime?" asked Hermione. She had not exactly thought her defiance of Umbridge would take her this far.

"Business as usual for now," said Gemma with a touch of formality, still not looking at Hermione. "But they can't keep running things without a Headmistress, and none of the other teachers are qualified to take up her post. They're saying they might have to close down, if it comes to it."

"Oh, pish posh," said Romilda airily. "They're always saying that. Remember in fourth year when Irma Crabbe was caught keeping a pet ferret in her room and they threatened to close down because of vermin? It'll turn out all right." She rounded on Hermione. "We have more important things to discuss. Tell us _everything_."

Hermione glanced furtively at Gemma. "There's nothing to discuss, really."

"Nothing, ha! I heard Riddle was taking you with him to Slughorn's party after Easter."

"It's frightening how fast news travels around here. And I'm taking myself. He'll be there too. We _both_ won Slughorn's contest."

"No arguments this time, you have to let me fix you up. You're not going looking a fright like you did at the Founders' Ball."

Hermione groaned. Indeed, there seemed to be no shortage of schoolmates yearning for gossip or for a chance to "fix her up a little" in the following days. Winter sleet melted into warm Spring rain as Easter holiday drew near, and all anyone seemed to want to talk about was the fact that Hermione Granger was going out with Tom Riddle. The gossip only grew more vociferous after Hermione's S.P.E.W. article finally appeared in the _Quibbler_. Though Neville Longbottom's editorial supervision had kept the article in the realm of sanity, Hermione could have done without Luna Lovegood's additional "notes on the author" tacked on at the end of the piece. Luna's assertion that Hermione was best known for her hobby of swimming with Plesiosaurs in the lake did not aid her cause. She found herself the source of much speculation for nearly a fortnight.

_How did she ever manage to snag the Head boy?_ the whispers followed her in the hall at dinnertime.

Yet the fallout from the article was not all bad. Hermione was surprised when, in the last week before Easter break, the Delacour sisters strode up to her in the lunch line to announce loudly that they supported her cause and that "Zis sort of thing would be very amusing to zere family back home in Callais."

On the last day of term, Amelia returned to the school for a visit and flung herself down at the table beaming widely at Hermione.

"I've enrolled in a typing class!" she announced proudly once every girl in the vicinity had finished exclaiming anew over her ring and enfolding her in an enthusiastic embrace.

"Congratulations!" said Hermione. "I really think—"

"Ask her about Riddle!" Romilda burst out. "Her _boyfriend_. We never get any details out of her."

"Goodness," said Amelia dreamily. "I wonder how it would be to go out with Tom Riddle. I don't think I'd ever be able to concentrate. What's it like?"

"It's... interesting," said Hermione, which was perfectly true.

She had not quite known what to expect once her relationship with Tom had become official. She knew she could not be doing anything egregiously dangerous, given Dumbledore's message. Still, she had wondered whether Tom would take their attachment as a sort of capitulation—an indication to treat her like he did all the other girls. Instead he put library books he thought she would enjoy on reserve. He slung an arm casually over her shoulders when they walked to class together. He pulled her in close sometimes, when she was busy studying, and kissed her breathless. She wondered what it said about her that she felt her heart stutter every time he brushed a hand over her hair. In practical terms, she was a spy doing the best she could to infiltrate the operations of one of the most dangerous men on earth. But when she closed her eyes he was only Tom and she liked the way his hands felt nestled in the crooks of her arms.

"Where's Mary, anyway?" Amelia asked, drawing Hermione out of her reverie.

"Oh, she's gone home early for Easter," said Gemma when Hermione looked down at her plate with great interest. "She got herself into a bit of trouble."

A small smirk touched Gemma's lips, and Hermione could not help but grin back.

Amelia shrugged. "Well listen, Hermione, I've been working from lots of different patterns for my sisters' bridesmaid dresses. I have some with me that we can use to whip you up an outfit for Slughorn's party."

Under the collective weight of Amelia's and Romilda's forceful encouragement, Hermione caved and agreed to let them prepare her an outfit for the party. The evening was spent in measurements and happy chatter about wedding plans, so that all in all Hermione was quite glad when Easter break arrived and the grounds emptied themselves. Hermione and Tom were among the only students who elected to remain at the school for the holidays. Hermione spent most of her mornings in the Hufflepuff gardens with piles of newspapers sprawled around her, researching legal cases that might be some help in getting Sirius Black released. Tom whiled away this time blowing smoke rings in the crisp April air, watching her or else rifling through his notes on the Ignotus serum, which progressed at a steady pace. Hermione was still loathe to help him with it, but at the same time consumed with a perverse curiosity to observe the beginnings of such a historically significant process. Tom's work was undeniably brilliant. Hermione wondered what he would do to her, if and when she succeeded in destroying everything they were working for. She strived to think of other things, and never of the way it would feel to hold a match to his ambitions and watch them go up in flames. It would feel right, surely? _Surely?_

"What are you thinking about?" he asked her one afternoon when, tiring of the oppressive humming lights in the lab, they had taken their work outside again.

_I'm wondering if you would kill me like you did Myrtle, when you find out what I'm doing,_ she thought. A cold finger traced a line of dread down her back.

"I like the grounds empty like this," she said as steadily as she could. "It's like we're the only ones around for miles."

"There's never anyone else of consequence around for miles," he pointed out caustically.

"You know what I mean. We could jump in the lake naked and no one would notice..." She trailed off as a wicked grin flitted across his face. It took several seconds to realize what she had said. "Oh! I didn't mean—"

"No, do go on." He set down his notes to toy with a fold in her skirt, tracing slow circles over her knee with his thumb. Hermione could not repress a shiver. "What else could we do naked in the lake?"

"I—I didn't—"

"No you're right, we could have much more fun if we just remained indoors. In your room, perhaps, without old Umbridge around to interfere—"

"_Tom_."

He dropped his hand at once, still grinning. "Hermione. Relax. Have I ever given you the impression I wanted you to do anything you were uncomfortable with?"

_Well, of course you have,_ Hermione thought. _Every day that you insist on us working on that serum._ And of course he would say that was not the same, but in her book it was worse, far worse. She took a deep breath to steady the racing of her heart. The air smelled almost too good to be true.

"Fresh air is never like this in the future," she observed. There was a kind of reckless delight in being able to talk freely about her journey through time. "In the city or in the country, it doesn't matter. Something about it is spoiled just beneath the surface. We've poured too many pollutants into it."

"And yet you sound like you miss it."

"I can't explain it," said Hermione. "It's like... the first time you leave home as a child, to go somewhere farther away than school or a friend's house. Or swimming in a lake that's been warmed by the sun and finding a pocket of cool water all of a sudden. Except it never goes away. I feel wrong-footed all the time, like—well, like the fabric of the world around me knows I'm not where I'm meant to be." She sighed. "That day I left my time was probably the most important day of my life, and I didn't even know it. If I had, I'd have taken a moment to notice what it felt like to _fit_."

"The day I left the orphanage as a child to come here was the most important day of my life," Tom said flatly, unexpectedly. He had turned away from her, and Hermione realized in a jarring split-second that he always looked directly into her eyes when he lied. "It doesn't matter if that shithole made room for me or not. People like us—we don't need to fit. We _can't_ and we're not meant to."

"People like us," she marveled. It rolled off his tongue like honey, almost making her want to be like him, exciting and unrestricted and not believing in limits. Almost, but not quite.

"I've still got a lot of homework to do," she said quietly.

"You're miles ahead in every class," Tom protested, encircling her waist to draw her closer. She swallowed the lump in her throat, and his eyes traced down her neck hungrily. God in heaven, why hadn't anyone ever warned her it could be like this? Why hadn't anyone told her how easy it was to slip sideways into a blurred sort of dream where someone was closing an iron grip around her heart and-despite what he was, despite everything he had done-she didn't even truly mind?

"I guess I can stay a few minutes more," she said.

But all too soon the holidays came to a close, and Hermione found herself sitting in front of her bedroom mirror on the evening of Slughorn's party faced with a peculiar dilemma. Gemma and Amelia had both offered to lend her expensive family jewellery for the evening. Hermione had politely declined, citing nonsense reasons about not wanting to appear too gaudy. In truth, she disliked jewellery for its impracticality and was accustomed only to the necklace given to her by Ron. Yet staring at her reflection, she no longer felt right wearing it. Ron's necklace was a gift from a sunny youthful time when her best friend had made her heart flutter; a time long gone. She did not think she could continue to wear it and dance with Tom.

When Hermione reached up to unclasp the chain, however, her fingers snagged on a small protrusion that had not been there before. She removed the necklace and examined the clasp: a tiny metal chip, like a bugging device, had been affixed to it. Her heart dropped into her stomach.

"Dammit, Tom," she hissed furiously under her breath. How _dare_ he keep tabs on her? How long had this even been going on? Surely if she dispensed with the necklace all of a sudden, he would suspect something.

Hermione pried the chip from the clasp and replaced it with the backing of an earring pin, which looked passably similar. This she secured in place with some of Romilda's false eyelash glue. She hid the chip in her sock drawer and reluctantly fastened the necklace back around her neck.

Forgoing rouge entirely—her cheeks were colored enough with anger already—Hermione stormed out of her dormitory across the grounds to wait at the front doors of Slytherin in her snug cherry red dress, all pins and ribbons and acute discomfort. It wasn't as though she disliked dressing up. She still remembered fondly the look of amazement on Ron's face after she had let her mother take her to a hair salon in fourth year. Every now and again Hermione took pride in putting time and care into her appearance. But Romilda, predictably, had gone a shade too far with the décolletage and the hemline, and Hermione felt as though her dress were being held together by some sort of magic.

It was at least satisfying even through her anger, when Tom greeted her at the doors, to watch his eyes widen. He held out his arm to her and she rolled her eyes, but allowed him to lead her inside.

"You look..." he began.

"Why, don't tell me our illustrious Head Boy is at a loss for words?"

"I have a word in mind, but I think you'd reprove me for using it in polite company."

She fought a blush and swatted him on the arm, perhaps a little harder than the comment deserved.

"You're still wearing your necklace," he observed after a moment.

"I suppose it's a habit," said Hermione, taken aback. "Why, doesn't it go with the dress?"

He paused in consideration. "I think I prefer you without it."

Something swooped in Hermione's stomach. She tightened her grip on his arm.

"Here," she said. She pulled off the necklace and dropped it into her tiny purse. They entered Slughorn's party together to approving murmurs from many teachers, who seemed to have become disproportionately partisan in the relationship of their two brightest, supposedly orphaned students.

"Miss Granger!" exclaimed Slughorn within less than a quarter of a second of their arrival. "Looking quite radiant, dear girl. You are a credit to us. And Tom, punctual as always. I must say, you make quite the pair. I trust you two will be running the country within fifteen years. Ten, if you keep attending my parties. I have excellent connections in parliament, you know." He winked.

"I'm not sure I have the right background for a job in government," said Tom mildly with a sideways glance at Hermione.

"Nonsense!" boomed Slughorn. "Why I was just saying to Alan here—" he reached into the crowd and seemed to produce a man out of thin air, "I was just telling Alan that I've never seen such a dedicated Head boy..."

Hermione let out a tiny, incredulous squeal.

"Is that _Alan Turing?_" she asked Tom under her breath, beside herself with amazement. Tom shrugged.

Under cover of Slughorn's enthusiastic introductions to Tom Hermione excused herself and slipped away to a quieter corner to compose herself. There were times when she felt that she did not fit, it was true. But there were also moments like this one, when she found history living and breathing around her, that she almost could not believe her luck.

"Ah, Miss Granger!"

"Oh, I'm sorry sir, I didn't see you," said Hermione, backing away from an armchair by the fire in which Dippet was slumped.

"Not at all, not at all. Why don't you join us?"

The Headmaster looked rather sallow in the firelight. There were bags under his eyes and the glass of gin in his hand was already two thirds empty. Across from him sat a haughty looking man with blond hair and a pointed chin, who bore an uncanny resemblance to...

"Allow me to introduce you to Armand Malfoy, an esteemed member of both the Hufflepuff and Slytherin board of governors," said Dippet. The elder Malfoy's eyes were cold. Hermione inclined her head politely. "Armand, Miss Granger is, as I was just explaining, one of the top two students in the school, along with the Head Boy."

"Yes, Abraxas has told me all about you," said Malfoy coolly. "I should think he should be ashamed to be beaten in every test by a female, but I hear that you come from a proper military family, Miss Granger. It is good to see that those with proper patriotic sentiment remain at the top."

His sneer made Hermione's skin crawl. She wanted nothing more than to respond with a fervent, "Actually, my father wrote a thesis on the socioeconomic ills of war at Yale," but Dippet, who did not appear to be listening, cut in.

"Nasty business, this situation with Umbridge," he sighed. "The superintendent's been breathing down my neck about it for a month now. He simply can't see keeping Hufflepuff open much longer as a viable option, and yet with all that money invested by the girls' families, to let them go so soon before their graduation..."

"Why don't you just transfer the Hufflepuff students here to finish out the year at Slytherin?" asked Hermione.

Dippet and Malfoy both looked at her as though she had sprouted an extra head.

"Well, it's not as though it would be groundbreaking," Hermione went on a little less steadily. "After all, I've already been accepted and the sky hasn't fallen. I've been looking into it, and if you take the seventh year Hufflepuffs' grades in the only common subject, Latin, and compare them with the Slytherins'—not counting mine and Tom's, of course—they average to around the same, if not higher. It would seem the simplest solution."

"Now, now, Miss Granger," said Dippet repressively, "these are not matters for students to discuss... The board would never allow..."

"Actually, sir," said Tom, appearing at Hermione's side quite suddenly and handing her a flute of champagne, "if you consider things from a purely financial standpoint, I think Hermione's suggestion has some merit."

"Ah, Tom! I don't really—That is to say—"

"It took me some time to extricate myself from Slughorn," Tom whispered in Hermione's ear, before turning back to Dippet. "You see, sir, I think I'm correct in saying that the girls' graduation fees would be transferable to Slytherin? And in fact, didn't I hear just last week that Augusta Longbottom made a substantial donation to the school after seeing Hermione's article in the _Quibbler?_ I believe she was quoted as saying that it was about time the board enacted some much needed change... Isn't that donation going towards the new wing of the library, sir?"

Hermione watched him in amusement. It was nothing short of thrilling to see Tom pull on the Headmaster's strings with expert fingers. Malfoy's expression had turned from disdain to cool appraisal.

"Indeed," he said pensively. "Well spoken, young man. Yes, Abraxas has told me a great deal about you as well. See me later if you wish to discuss possibilities for employment after your graduation."

Tom's response was effusive and gracious. Hermione did not think anyone besides herself could hear the undercurrent of sarcasm in his tone.

They excused themselves from the fireside in high spirits, and Hermione promptly tripped in Romilda's absurd pointed shoes, spilling most of her drink onto the floor.

"I'll get you another," said Tom at once. Her answering smile was instinctive; it had formed on her lips before she could even think about it.

She waited for him out of view of the rest of the party by a silk-draped pillar, giving herself over to a hobby that had recently grown almost into a nervous tick. Whenever she had a spare moment, Hermione had taken to pulling out her phone and looking through pictures of her old life. She knew it was unhealthy, but day by day the faces of the future seemed to fade in her mind, and she could not bear the thought of losing them. Here was a photo of herself, Harry, and Ron at the town fair the summer before their third year. She missed the two of them, her two boys. She missed them so much it was painful to look at them. She tapped the screen and accidentally flitted into another set of photos. Here were the pictures she had taken of the lab before Tom had known the truth about her. She had looked through these a hundred times in search of clues to no avail, but now, looking at them with fresh eyes, she suddenly noticed something. There was a long, narrow item in the background of one of the photos, almost like a tree branch or a broom handle. She could not quite make out what it was through the grainy quality of the image in her phone, but its presence was definitely progress.

"What's this?" asked Tom, returning to her with his customary stealth and holding two new glasses of champagne.

"I was just being nostalgic," she said, hastily stuffing her phone in the minuscule purse provided by Romilda.

Tom's face turned blank with disinterest as it did at any mention of sentimentality.

"Don't you ever get tired of being you?" Hermione asked, not caring if she sounded offensive. She thought it must be exhausting to constantly guard himself against any trickle of real feeling that might come sneaking in.

"That's one way to put it," he said, his voice barely above a whisper, his face emptier than ever. Suddenly he was a little frightening in the absolute way he could make shutters fall over his eyes and close out the world.

"Then why do you work so hard at it?"

He set down the glasses and took a step closer to her. Then another. They were pressed against the stone archway that gave on the outside corridor now. Hermione felt a little faint. He tilted his head to the side, and she thought she could almost read the thoughts radiating from him, the short clipped answers, each truer than the next because he was looking away again, not looking into her eyes. _What else is there?_ he might say, or _Because I don't know anything else_, or _Because I fucking want to_.

Instead he said, "You smell like cinnamon."

Some perfume of the girls'. Just now Hermione could not recall exactly what it was called. She was drawing an absolute blank.

They moved at the same time, kissing and stumbling together into the corridor, then into an abandoned classroom. Hermione's heart was beating so hard she felt sure the whole school would hear it. To her tremendous disappointment, they were interrupted almost at once by a muffled crash outside the room.

"What was—" Hermione began, but Tom pulled back and held a finger slowly to his lips, moving to peek out into the corridor. Hermione could see through a crack in the door that the corridor was empty. Yet the noise had come from very close by. They were too far from the party for it to have been a rowdy guest.

Quite casually, Tom pulled a gun from beneath his jacket.

"Oh my God!" Hermione whispered frantically. "What—where did you even get—what the _hell_ are you doing with that?"

"You were attacked on the grounds by someone who nearly drowned you. Someone who then vanished into thin air. I'm not about to give them a second chance to try and get at you."

He stepped out of the room with his gun held in front of him, turning in a semi-circle and examining his surroundings with perfect calm. All the blood in Hermione's veins had turned to ice. She was paralyzed, astounded. Every time she thought she had got her head wrapped around what Tom was really about, he went and did something like _this_...

"Stop," she said under her breath, following him reluctantly. "Stop it. Put that away. Are you _mad?_"

"I might be if you don't stop making noise—"

"We're in _school_, there are _teachers_ nearby—"

"Hermione, they give medals for this sort of thing. Catching criminals in the act... It doesn't matter how I do it. Didn't anyone ever tell you the story of how I helped Dippet discover who killed Myrtle?"

She felt as though he had struck her. Tom continued for several paces, kicked open a door, and at last seemed to decide there was no immediate danger. He lowered the gun.

"What really happened?" Hermione asked in a hollow voice. "To Myrtle? And your father, your family?"

"Oh, I killed them," he said offhandedly.

There was a terrible, sickening moment of silence that seemed to spin on and on.

Hermione's shoulders slumped. "Why are you telling me?"

"Because if you're asking, it means you already know. Frankly, I'd think less of you if you hadn't looked it up by now and worked it all out."

"You're not even going to _defend_ yourself?"

"Because _I don't care_," he said, turning to face her. "It's done. I didn't plan for Myrtle, but I'm not fucking _sorry_ I did it. She wasn't supposed to see—it's _done_. And my father, his family—you don't fucking know what they are, what they did to my mother. Treating her like an animal... I'm _glad_ I did it, and I'd do it again. What do you think of that, hmm? With your dress and your lips and you—you—what do you think of that?"

Hermione could not speak. Her lips were numb. His voice played on a loop in her head: _I'm not fucking sorry_. And she felt something akin to hysteria, because through all this speech, for the first time, he had been looking directly into her eyes.

"So now it's out," he went on loudly. He seemed to be picking up steam, and there was something a little unhinged in his voice, too. "So what? What are you going to do, run to Dippet? You forget that I know _your_ secret."

"I'm not going to run to Dippet," Hermione heard herself say as if from far away. "You think I've been pretending all this time we've been going out? That I'm that good an actress? You just said it—I already knew. And here I am. You think I'm capable of being as cynical, as twisted as you will b—"

She stopped herself abruptly and bit her tongue, frightened. She had been about to say _as twisted as you will be_. Tom's eyes flashed.

"What am I to you in the future, _really?_" he asked with that imperative tone that would brook no opposition.

And that was when the truth hit Hermione head on with all the force of a speeding freight train.

_Oh my God._

"I—I have to go," she said shrilly, certain her legs were about to collapse beneath her.

She almost missed the dismay that flared in Tom's eyes. But it was there, if only for a fraction of an instant.

"Go?" he repeated coldly. "I see."

"I'll see you tomorrow," she said, desperate to get away. Everything, everything was worse than she'd thought. A hundred times worse. She could not let him suspect. The air felt too thin, the ground too shaky.

"Hermione." Not a question or even a request. She could have sworn it was almost a plea.

"I have to go."

"Hermione, what is this? You know I can't let you run away. You know I have secrets to guard, things to defend."

"I told you, I could never betray you. I—" She choked on her words, hardly knowing what she was saying. "I'm yours and you're mine, Tom. But I hate everything you just said, so I _can't_—I _have_ to go. Just back to my dormitory. Just... for now."

He was giving her that tempestuous look that was unique to Tom. There was no time to dwell on it. Before he could protest further Hermione took off at a sprint down the corridor, stopping only to pull off her cumbersome shoes. She heaved in great lungfulls of air along the way, attempting to get her panic under control.

It had struck her at last, when he had asked what he was to her in the future, and for an instant she had seen the wizened, terrible face of Tom Marvolo Riddle superimposed over _her_ Tom. The pieces had clicked, and she had realized that the object in the picture on her phone was not a tree branch or a broom handle.

It was a cane.

She whipped out her phone again and pulled up the screen that listed past calls. The only recent one was her video conversation with Prince. She pressed the redial button, praying to every nonexistent entity known to the world that he would answer.

"Yes?" said Prince coldly, appearing on the screen after an agonizing fifteen seconds.

"Meet me in the lab," Hermione said. "Don't you _dare_ refuse."

Something in his expression changed subtly.

"Ah," said Prince. "Indeed."

The screen went blank.

Hermione ran the rest of the way down to the passageway in the bathroom. She burst into the lab, panting and wheezing, to find Prince waiting for her.

"He's here, isn't he?" she said. "Tom Riddle from my time is here. He tried to kill me in the lake."

"As a matter of interest," said Prince in a bored voice, "how did you find out?"

"I researched Riddle extensively in the future. After he recovered from his cancer he walked with a cane, and there was a lot of talk about whether he was fit to run the company anymore, or if he should retire. He rarely made television appearances anymore, because he was stooped and infirm. And the person who attacked me seemed small like a child, but much stronger. He attacked me. I saw his cane in the lab."

Prince nodded curtly. "Well, now that you've finally caught up, I suppose you would like to know what comes next."

"No, _hang on,_" Hermione snapped. She had, at last, reached the end of her tether. She had been put through the wringer, again and again, and told to sit pretty and not ask questions. It ended now.

Prince raised one eyebrow. "I don't think interrupting—"

"I'm not finished," said Hermione firmly. "How did Riddle get here? Why haven't you filled me in on any of this before? I'm not leaving without answers."

"I am not here to take commands from insolent children."

"Then what are you here for? You've just been waiting for me to catch up all along, haven't you? Did _you_ have me sent back in time?"

"Of course not, you simpleton. If you will sit down and allow me to speak for a moment." He waited impatiently while Hermione took a seat, fuming. "You were the first human being ever to travel through time. It was an accident that caused a panic when it came to light. The fact that a cataclysm was not unleashed was a revelation. An experimental program was launched to attempt to make time travel a functional option. Unfortunately, Dippet had it put about that you were mentally unstable after your graduation, no doubt to cover the fact that your grades exceeded those of nearly every male in the school. Scientists who looked up records of your existence in history came to the conclusion that time travel had broken your mind. They undertook the task of devising a gentler mode of transport. Imbeciles. Needless to say, Riddle managed to get a hold of this technology and used it to send himself as far back as he could go, hoping to re-shape the world as he saw fit and create a cure for his illness before his younger self fell ill."

Hermione could see at least a dozen paradoxes emerging already, but she held her tongue at the look on Prince's face.

"It was determined that he must be stopped. Highly trained recruits were sought to track Riddle down and bring him to heel."

"But where do you come into this?" asked Hermione, frustrated.

"I volunteered. I was in the employ of Walpurgis Incorporated at the time, so they selected me for my specialized interest and knowledge of Riddle. I was one of many put through training, but the only one selected, ultimately."

"Why did you volunteer if you worked for Walpurgis?"

"The corporation caused many deaths. I had been gathering information in an attempt to bring it down from the inside for well over a decade. Since the year 2006."

"But Walpurgis had been causing deaths for decades. What changed? What happened in 2006..." Hermione trailed off. Flashbulbs were going off in her head left and right. "God, that—that was the year Harry's parents died. Did you—? No one understood where that obscure relation came from with Mrs. Potter's altered will, the one that revealed the life insurance policy that saved Harry. Because Harry doesn't have any other family besides that horrible aunt and uncle he was sent to... We always wondered who was the mystery man with the will who refused to reveal his identity."

To Hermione's surprise, as she spoke Snape's face crumpled in pain. He mastered himself in a moment, but there was no mistaking what had been.

"So it _was_ you," she breathed. "I'm... I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

"The process of time travel is yet quite imperfect," said Prince, ignoring her. "I was not sent back quite as far as intended—not as far as Riddle himself traveled. Yet following this accident it became possible for me to observe Riddle in his youth, and you yourself. It became immediately clear to me that, though careless and thoughtless, you were not mad. I employed a quantum entanglement communication device to convey this information to the future and was instead contacted by one Albus Dumbledore."

"_Albus Dumbledore_—"

"Be quiet, for God's sake. Yes, Albus Dumbledore, who revealed to me the truth of the program that sent me back to track down Riddle. The truth the team at MI5 never understood. That the future did not depend upon myself, but upon the Nightingale."

"What... me?"

"I have not been told all the particulars. I was simply told to wait until you caught up to the truth, as you have just done. Now the easy part is at an end."

Hermione's head was spinning. "The easy part? I don't understand... All we have to do is find Riddle and keep him for interfering with his younger self."

But Prince was shaking his head. "It is not that simple. To put it in terms you will understand, time travel, like regular travel, is not always a straight shot from point A to point B. In your time, you might have boarded a plane in London, which would have taken you to Marseilles, and then continued on to Paris by bus. After the incident of your disappearance, the process of time travel was tweaked to attempt to make sure travelers would survive with their sanity. Several... shall we say _pit stops_ were established along the way in order to lessen the trauma on the body. The traveler takes a series of pauses in which they are suspended in a state of limbo, neither within time or without." Here Prince's brow furrowed. "The unforeseen result was a sort of echo. An imprint of the traveler left upon the continuum of time and space. I managed to locate these copies of myself and eliminate them in a short time. But Riddle's separated and set about wreaking havoc."

"Copies?" said Hermione, horrified. "_Human_ copies? How many are there?"

"Seven. These are beings which exist in a state of constant quantum flux, a unique state which has allowed several causal chains to exist in parallel. They are pale versions of Riddle but extremely dangerous. Their presence may have unimaginable repercussions. Your presence here, your involvement with Riddle, would not have been possible had not these copies appeared in the past before you."

"That's impossible."

"It is," Prince agreed seriously. "Which is why it is crucial the copies should be stopped. They are zeroing in on you as the possible source of their downfall—this is why one of them indeed attempted to kill you in the lake. If you follow through with your plan to destroy the younger Riddle's work on the Ignotus serum, the causal chain that will one day create the copies will collapse. They will be blotted out of existence."

Something in his voice suggested there was more.

"_And?_" said Hermione with trepidation.

"And it is possible anyone else connected with the causal chain will be wiped out of existence as well."

"You mean me," said Hermione flatly. "Don't you? _Don't you?_"

Prince's silence was all the answer she needed. Hermione was silent for a long time. She felt cold, and not nearly as alarmed as the situation warranted. Perhaps it was all too much, and she had simply shut out the panic lest she should go mad. When she spoke again it was with an unnatural calm.

"I don't suppose I have a choice, do I?"

"On the contrary," said Prince without emotion. "There is always a choice. However, it seems fairly clear what that choice will be. Time chooses its keepers well. That much has always been clear to those who have studied its workings."

A disjointed thought surfaced above all others. "What happened to the older Tom Riddle?" Hermione asked. "Not his copies, but him."

"He died immediately upon his arrival in the past. The impact of the journey and of leaving behind so many imprints of himself was too much."

Hermione sat across from Prince in the cold silence of the lab, neither moving nor speaking. The clock on the wall above her ticked on an on, measuring out the minutes.

She wondered if her days were numbered.

oOo

Tom punched a wall with all his might, sending a searing pain trough his hand and bruising his knuckles badly. He thought he might have broken a few fingers. He did not give a damn. He had been in control of the conversation, like always. He had been in the right, and there had been so much she did not understand... So why, then, had he come away feeling—well, for lack of a better word, slightly ashamed of himself? Hermione's sudden departure had completely wrong-footed him.

"She is lying to you, you know."

Tom drew his gun at once. He had never used the thing before, but he felt certain it could not be so difficult to pull the trigger. It had not been so very difficult, after all, to fasten his hands around Myrtle's throat and—What a fucking crossroads that day had been. He still could not understand how things had spun so far out of control; how he had turned into a murderer in an instant, without any time to think or choose or evaluate...

"Who's there?" he asked.

An old man, frail and lined, came limping out of the empty classroom Tom and Hermione had just vacated. Tom found it almost impossible to look at him except obliquely. Something about the man unsettled him and set his teeth on edge.

"The girl is lying to you."

"What is this? Where have you come from?"

For an instant he could have sworn the man _flickered_ at the edges.

"See for yourself."

Tom looked to where the man was pointing and saw that Hermione had left her purse on a desk inside the classroom. Keeping an eye on the curious apparition behind him, Tom walked up to the desk and opened the purse. All he found inside was a tube of lipstick and the necklace Hermione had removed at the start of the night. His tracking chip was still in place on the clasp. Except that, on closer inspection, it was not his chip at all but a useless bit of metal.

"It's a fake," said the old man in a voice that made Tom want to shudder. "She planted it to fool you. She's been lying to you for a long time. She knows more than she's let on. And you, foolish, blinded by desire, you have let her do it."

"Who the hell are you?" Tom demanded again.

But when he turned around, the old man had vanished.

* * *

**A/N:** Thank you so much to **Cellar, ohmyfish, Mechanical Orange, Ziwen, AvoidedIsland, Beserked2, Keira-House MD, Jessica, XxCupCakeLoverxX, haitt, krook, Alaia Daisy El-A, Classical Deconstruction, Guest, Ella Palladino, Guest, AnonymousInkBlot, yultiguilunforever, Guest...**

1. Confused? Disturbed? Infuriated? So am I little bit... No but seriously guys I promise to explain more soon.  
2. I probably messed up the dates on that peppered moth experiment, and I doubt Alan Turing would have been friends with Slughorn. But hey this is an AU, history is my playground.  
3. The epigraph is from Michael Ondaatje's "The Cinnamon Peeler's Wife" (gotta plug those Canadian authors, yo).  
4. Just a friendly reminder that the women's movement DID exist in the 40's. It had for several decades. So while Hermione's actions may be a bit brash, I don't think they're actually that revolutionary.  
5. One more chapter and an epilogue aaaaaaaahhh!

Cheers :)


	7. vii

_vii – i've made my peace, i'm dead, i'm done;  
i watch you live to have my fun  
_

oOo

On the first of May, the students of Hufflepuff Preparatory School for Girls were transferred to Slytherin College. The resulting schism between social groups left Hermione in a bizarre and unique position. Oftentimes when she was sitting in Latin or Theology, listening to Katie or Romlida babble incoherently, she would turn to see Malfoy or Crouch rolling their eyes conspiringly in her direction. Once Malfoy even leaned forward and whispered, "Set them right, Granger, would you?" The boys' attitudes were almost as disconcerting as the girls'. Gemma, the Delacour sisters, and Luna Lovegood, among others, were faring surprisingly well in their new academic environment. Better than Hermione had expected, if she was being honest with herself. But many of the girls seemed to have taken their transfer as an opportunity to double down on attracting a future husband. Pansy Parkinson spent so much time reapplying lipstick these days that it was a wonder she ever even made it to class.

All this would have been cause for some concern to Hermione, had she not been so completely preoccupied already by a much bigger dilemma. Ever since the night of Slughorn's party the week before, she had been taking great pains to avoid Tom. She had thought he would call her out on it, seek to speak with her. _Something_. But all he did was sit at the back of classrooms, not taking notes, and answer questions flawlessly in an impassible voice. It was driving her mad.

She lost sleep wondering how in the hell she would ever manage to get her hands on the Ignotus serum if Tom wasn't even speaking to her. She had no idea how to go about extracting the safe combination from him, so that she could enter the sealed refrigerator in the lab. And surely he would notice, very soon, that her tracking chip never moved from her bedroom?

Through all this worry, Hermione also took it upon herself to fret as much as possible over her upcoming exams. Dark purple bags were growing under her eyes. Every night she dreamed of malevolent spectral versions of Tom creeping into her room and hiding in the shadows. In class her hands trembled as she attempted to take notes, and her thoughts drifted to Sirius Black, to Gemma crying, to Tom with a gun in his hands. It was not until the final week before exams that a distraction arrived sufficiently disruptive to draw Hermione out of her stupor. To her everlasting exasperation, all the sixth and seventh year girls were granted a day pass to attend Amelia's wedding, which had been pushed back because of various familial complications.

"I'm as happy for Amelia as anyone," said Hermione defensively when, walking into the reception in a handsome church in Manchester, Romilda pointed out that she was 'sucking all the happiness out of the room.' "I just don't see that it's strictly necessary for _all_ of us to attend. I mean, the most important exams of our _lives_ are coming up..."

"And we're all very tired of hearing you talk about it," said Romilda, patting her affectionately on the arm. "Come on, let's go see if there's anyone handsome enough to dance with. We have to get your mind off Riddle, don't we?"

"What? I—I don't—" Hermione spluttered.

"Oh please, don't try to deny it. You've both been miserable lately. It's practically a Shakespearean tragedy every time you look at each other."

Hermione allowed herself to be led to the front table, where Romilda promptly forgot about her the moment she caught sight of a waiter. Hermione hurried to a more secluded table, spreading her homework out in front of her and glaring at anyone who showed signs of wanting to engage her in conversation.

The band launched into a swinging tune that drew the majority of the guests onto the dance floor. Amelia looked resplendent in acres of white muslin, laughing and dancing at the center of the crowd. Hermione supposed she should go and congratulate her, but the crowd was too dense. As was the subject of her Biology paper. She could feel a headache coming on.

"I pity the poor soul who tries to ask you to dance."

Hermione's heartbeat stuttered. Tom sat down across from her, unsmiling. She thought that he, too, looked tired—though still painfully handsome.

"What are you doing here?" she asked in a small voice.

"Dippet thought you girls could use some extra supervision on your train ride back."

They stared at one another in silence for a moment that spun painfully on and on. At length, slowly, Tom reached across the table to brush his thumb against her temple.

"You're not afraid of me," he observed.

There was no sense asking what he meant. She thought of the gun in his hand. His cold tone of voice. _I'm not fucking sorry._

"Should I be?"

"Never," he said quietly.

Hermione leaned into his touch. "Why are you really here?"

"It's finished."

She blinked.

"What?"

"The adjustments on the serum. All worked out. Of course, it will take a week or so to run test trials and make certain beyond a doubt. But it's done." Tom pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and twitched it before her eyes. "As a matter of fact, I found the solution right here."

It was her homework. Hermione looked at it wonderingly, recognizing her small, neat handwriting from a fortnight ago.

"From the paper I wrote for Slughorn on alternatives to Anthracycline?" she said.

"I graded it myself. Slughorn sometimes passes off some of his less desirable tasks on me. Your observations about the metabolic and antibacterial properties of silver extracts were what gave me the tip I needed."

Hermione understood. "The medical benefits of silver refinement weren't posited until the twenty-first century. I couldn't help slipping something into the paper, since I knew Slughorn wouldn't pay much attention anyway." She frowned. "I ought to have made the connection to the serum myself."

Not that she would have necessarily told Tom if she had. The completion of the serum was the opposite of a positive development.

"It doesn't matter," said Tom. "We're there now."

There was a wild happiness about him that made him look somehow less human. A shiver raced down Hermione's back before she could help it.

"Tell me, Hermione," said Tom in a voice so grave she felt a little frightened.

"Tell you what?"

"Tell me... what's going through your mind right now."

She considered it. It went through Hermione's head to tell him the truth, for once. He knew something was amiss, that was certain. It was almost impossible, with the warmth of his hand against her face, to believe he would turn on her if she told him... what? If she told him that there were seven copies of him out there who both existed and did not exist? That she had to destroy everything he'd ever worked for in order to stop them from wreaking havoc on history? That in doing so she risked writing herself out of existence for a paradox?

Every one of her muscles tensed up. She looked into his eyes with her mouth bone dry.

"I'm in love with you," she said.

His face did not change. A small smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. Hermione's heart was racing as though she had just run a five minute mile. She did not think she had ever lied to someone by telling the truth before.

But did that mean she loved him? She probed her feelings, laboring to keep her features impassive. A month ago she might have said it was impossible. It seemed absurd to think she might love him, knowing all he had done. And yet.

And yet she could not exactly say she did _not_ love him. She was at a stalemate with herself. Tom dropped his hand to the table and tangled his fingers with hers, his smirk growing.

"Yes, I know," he said.

She had never expected him to say it too. He did not seem the type. Still, it hurt a little. It hurt more than it should have. Hermione shook off the gloom and tried for a smile, noting that something in the set of Tom's shoulders seemed to have relaxed slightly. The tightness around his eyes had lessened. Whatever had preoccupied him, she had put it to rest for the time being.

"Hermione, what are you doing all the way over here—Oh! Hello Tom!" Amelia appeared, flushed and beaming.

"Mrs. Davies," said Tom politely, standing at once.

"Goodness, I think I like the sound of that," Amelia giggled. "Come dance, you two."

"Oh no, I don't think—"

"I wasn't asking! This is my wedding. I get my way."

Hermione kept her grip on Tom's hand as she was dragged unceremoniously onto the dance floor, unwilling to give up her only anchor of sanity. What a piteous thought _that_ was. She rested her head against his chest as they danced in a slow circle to avoid having to look at his smirk any longer. It made her feel like screaming.

Would she ever see it again, after she destroyed the serum?

"Hermione," he said into her ear over the deep hum of the bass guitar.

"Hmm?"

"Everything from here on out is going to be perfect."

She nestled her head deeper against his chest so he would not see her crying.

oOo

With the addition of the Hufflepuff students, Slytherin graduation that year was a protracted affair. Tom stood at the front with Gemma Farley and recited the speech Black had written for him the previous night, injecting as much sincerity into his tone as he felt necessary. Well, he _would_ be very sorry to leave the school, after all. He'd never had a home before Slytherin. He was already planning to return here to teach after he graduated from Oxford. It would be the perfect recruiting ground. Dippet had balked a little at the suggestion of hiring someone so young, but Slughorn would vouch for him.

Hermione stood in the front row in a specially marked cap and gown. Every time he looked at her he was reminded that she had tied him for Valedictorian, and he wanted to kill her with his bare hands. Also, he wanted to drag her into a corner and strip her naked and make her lose her mind. He indulged in a string of colorful mental curses before forcing control upon himself. Things were precarious enough already without allowing himself to get distracted.

Something would have to be done about her. Hermione was too stubborn for her own good, and she was keeping things from him. He knew she was in love with him; he'd seen it in her eyes even before she'd spoken the words. Still, somehow, she was up to something. Tom had no idea how the shady old man he had spoken to outside Slughorn's party had made it into the school, or how he had vanished under his very nose. He could only suppose the man was an enemy of Hermione's, somehow, which meant that there were endeavors in Hermione's life he knew nothing about. And that was unacceptable.

"Why don't you just force it out of her?" Dolohov had grumbled when Tom had complained, perhaps unwisely, of his predicament. "Use the usual... persuasion."

"If that was an option, obviously, I would have done it," Tom had snapped.

Why didn't he force cooperation out of her? Simply put, the thought of Hermione being hurt in any way was abhorrent to him. He resented and admired her for it more every day, because it meant that she was right, in a way. Some things, abstract things outside of himself, _could_ matter, could be worth defending. Still, he would have to come to a decision about her sooner than later.

The party following the graduation ceremony lacked even the usual minimal attempts at containment. While the teachers luncheoned above stairs in their sedate lounge, bodies writhed to the music blaring from the record player down in the dark cellar. Dolohov was already passing around party favors, and revelers were doing lines right off the stone floor. Vane and Bell had disrobed to a provocative degree and were dancing atop the drinks table. Farley had given up demanding that people put out their cigarettes and was now running to and fro cleaning up glass shards as the rowdiest of the crowd smashed bottles of champagne against the walls.

Hermione was nowhere to be found.

Tom lingered for a time, in case Slughorn or Dippet should happen to come down and see the vast array of pharmaceuticals Dolohov was now distributing. The sea of sweaty, dancing bodies appealed to him about as much as a needle in the eye. When it became clear that Slughorn was probably drunk off his feet in the teacher's lounge, Tom slipped quietly away to find some peace in the grounds.

Things would have been much simpler if he could have just checked Hermione's fucking tracking chip. Yet, to his surprise, he need not look far for her. He recognized the short-cropped hair, the ratty second-hand sweater. She was sitting in the crook of a tree branch at the edge of the forest and reading. She looked larger than life in the first brush of twilight, a pale fragment of moonlight come to walk the earth but striving for the sky. She did not look up as he approached, but he could tell that she knew he was there.

"What exactly are you doing hiding in the forest at a time like this?" he asked. She was strange. She was _so_ strange. Was this what it was to find someone endearing? Tom's skin prickled uncomfortably—_stop waxing poetic_, he warned himself.

"I strive to break at least one rule listed on Umbridge's pamphlets each day," she said with a yawn, marking a page in her book and rubbing her eyes.

"Really, Hermione. There are study halls indoors, you know."

She gave an odd smile. "Luna Lovegood told me Mirrorlings don't like forests. They like manmade structures, places with technology in them."

"What the hell are Mirrorlings?"

"Oh, nothing at all." She shrugged, her expression strangely oblique. Was she avoiding his eyes? "It's just Luna, you know."

Tom reached into his pocket. "I have a graduation present for you."

"Oh?"

He produced a sheet of paper, unfolded it, and handed it to her. He watched in amusement as her eyes traveled over the page, and her lips framed the words _Order of Patient Discharge_. Her jaw dropped.

"Sirius Black is free and clear," Tom specified, because she looked beyond coherence.

"You—You—How did you—?"

"Very unethical means, I assure you. Malfoy won't be happy about the amount I've transferred out of his trust account, but there's no need for him to know where it went."

Her eyes were suddenly sparkling with tears. No, Tom did not want to have a crying girl on his hands; that was not in the realm of things he cared to experience. But Hermione kept her composure, though she let out a shaky breath.

"I didn't get you anything," she said tremulously.

Didn't she realize what a gift it was simply to have her, to be able to call her his? Yes, perhaps he was contemplating what to do about her double-crossing—was contemplating all kinds of possibilities. But there was no denying what a wonder she was.

"You did," he told her quietly, leaning forward to kiss her. He thought there was an edge of desperation in the way she moved.

She was beginning to make him imagine things.

"Come on," Tom said. "In a little while the party will be over and this place will be overrun. I know somewhere quieter we can go. Besides, I need to check my results."

He led her by the hand through the grounds to the passageway in the bathroom. It felt natural to walk this way, connected together. It felt objectively right. Tom could not understand why something akin to panic was beginning to assail him every time his thoughts drifted to the question of what to do about Hermione.

When they finally arrived at the lab he checked the readings on the newest version of the serum, and his fist closed tightly, nails digging into skin.

"The tests were a success," he announced, replacing the beaker in the safe and sealing it up. "It's finished, for real this time."

Victory coursed through his veins. He wanted a cigarette badly, or he wanted to run into the night and claim it as his own. He looked at Hermione, sitting on the edge of a nearby counter and chewing her nails unconsciously. She did not look as celebratory as he felt.

"We did it," he pointed out. Wondering if she knew what it cost him, that word: _we_ did it.

At last she smiled. "We did."

He walked over to her and lifted her down from the counter.

"This way," he said, tilting his head in the direction of the little room adjoining the lab where he sometimes spent the night if he became too absorbed with his work. She nodded, swallowing thickly. Tom pushed open the door and followed her inside, to where an old fashioned oil lamp sat on a little wood table next to a cot covered in knitted blankets.

He sat on the cot and crossed his arms behind his head, waiting for her to join him. Instead she began to pace around the tiny room, tapping her fingers rhythmically against her thighs and biting her lip.

She looked unbelievably nervous. "If you like, we can go back to the school instead and join the party," he offered.

But she shook her head. "No, I'd rather... No."

"Hermione."

Her gaze whipped to his. He reached out and pulled her close so that she stood before him, breathing deeply. With measured movements, never taking his eyes from hers, he wrapped his hands around her leg and unclipped her stocking, rolling it down past her knee to the ground. Her ragged breathing eased with each of his movements. Slowly, he did the same with her other leg.

"You would rather stay?" he asked.

"Yes."

He held her calf and lifted her leg onto the edge of the cot to brush a kiss against the inside of her knee. He heard her sharp intake of breath and looked up to see her frozen, eyes half closed, cheeks flushed. He could hardly stand to sit still and watch her when she looked like that. With a low growl he pulled her head down and kissed her, and they fell into a tangle together almost at once, her hands on his shoulders and his on her waist.

Tom turned down the knob on the oil lamp so that they were plunged into semi-darkness. She slid his shirt over his head and he helped her out of her uniform until they were pressed together, skin against skin, and her small noise of contentment as he kissed a trail down her shoulder almost knocked the wind out of him. He held himself over her carefully, seeking approval in her eyes. She gasped briefly, then relaxed and buried her face in the crook of his neck. And it was slow and decadent and she was his, and he was hers. That too, because he could not help the words that fell from his lips, a string of meaningless words that came faster and faster, _Hermione, don't leave, just—don't leave me, don't, Hermione, Hermione, don't leave me, don't—_

"No," she answered, a promise, a short, quiet pant. Her fingers dug into his back. "Tom—"

His name slid from her tongue again, and hers from his, mingling together, twisting and spinning, faster and higher.

_How would he ever live without this?_

He held her tightly and listened to the beat of her heart as she fell asleep. When he was certain she had drifted off he stood and dressed in silence. Then he slipped out of the room and sealed the door to the lab behind him, locking her in.

oOo

Hermione waited, feigning sleep, until she heard the door shut. Her eyes opened and adjusted to the dim light. She hugged her arms around herself, shivering.

If, as she hoped, Tom intended to return to the school to supervise the end of the graduation party while she slept, then she had several hours of free access to the lab. Hermione rose, quickly threw her uniform back on, and approached the refrigerator safe.

The combination could be any string of unrelated numbers; logically, she did not have a prayer of guessing it. But Hermione was not in the habit of giving up easily. Her mind ground into overdrive, producing a hundred possibilities, each as unlikely as the next. If Tom was being practical, he would have picked a series of numbers at random. Yet somehow, she suspected him of harboring a secret penchant for the grandiose. His passcode would be something meaningful, something that represented his being above others.

_The day I left the orphanage was the most important day of my life._

She blinked.

That was not the sort of information he shared with just anyone, Hermione thought. He had sounded too reserved while speaking it. Could it be...?

The day Tom had left the orphanage would have been the first day of his first year at Slytherin, seven years ago. Hardly daring to breathe, Hermione lifted a trembling finger and punched a date into the keypad: _01-09-1937._

For an agonizing moment nothing happened. Then there was the low sound of air being released, and the door popped open. A wave of relief washed over her, so powerful she staggered back. What now? Hermione opened the bottom drawer to verify that Ignotus Peverell's paper was still stashed there. This part of the problem would be more easily solved. She pulled the paper out and carried it over to a countertop. There, she lit a Bunsen burner and touched the flame to the edge of the first page.

The paper was old and dry. It went up in a roar instantly. Hermione dropped the fiery mess into a steel sink and watched it shrivel and burn until nothing was left but cinders. She turned on the tap and washed it all away. No copies. Nothing left. She felt a bead of sweat run down the back of her neck and forced the image of Tom out of her head.

Now for the serum. But before Hermione could move on, she was distracted by a small crash. She turned around to peer through the darkness at the laboratory door. Could someone be lurking outside? She strode to the door just to check and tugged on the handle.

It was locked.

It was locked from the outside. Tom had locked her in.

He had known all along that she was planning something. A little whimper of dismay escaped her, and she pressed her forehead against the cool glass of the door, thinking furiously of what to do next.

Then, without warning, she was thrown across the room.

She landed against the far counter, her head colliding painfully with the tabletop's edge. Stars burst in front of her eyes. When Hermione managed to sit up she saw three shadowy, blinking figures standing by the door. Another pair was emerging from the room with the cot behind her, and still two more seemed to creep up from behind the safe, their veiled, flickering eyes fixed on her. It was difficult to look at them without wanting to blink or turn away. Hermione could not explain the feeling of malaise their presence provoked, except to think that perhaps her mind was having difficulty wrapping itself around the presence of beings who both did and did not exist. Her overwhelming sense of dread was much more easily explained: these were the copies of Tom Riddle, and they had come for her.

Hermione pushed herself to her feet and gauged the distance to the safe out of the corner of her eye, her vision swimming. Her head hurt terribly where she had hit it against the counter.

"We can talk about this," she croaked to the aged figures closing in on her; the wizened, ancient spectres who reminded her of nothing less in the world than her Tom. "Just tell me what you want."

"The time for talk is past, girl," said the Riddle closest to her. His voice was sibilant to her ears, and a little garbled. He looked almost translucent at the edges, as if at any moment he might vanish.

"What you're doing can never work," Hermione insisted. She could see no way out of this but to keep talking, to keep them distracted. She backed towards the safe inch by inch as she spoke.

Another of the Riddles answered her this time. This one seemed far less coherent. His first few words were lost in a string of odd mechanical noises that sounded something like binary being recited at top speed. The first Riddle laughed.

"You are too late to stop us," he said. "None can stop us."

"But what can you possibly hope to accomplish by making the world more dangerous, more selfish and dark?"

One of the Riddles by the safe blinkered into nothingness all of a sudden, and reappeared by the door at his companions' side.

"What we do, we do for the glory, the benefit of the deserving. The weak will perish, and the strong will prosper. We are—"

Hermione lunged for the safe. Halfway through her dive she thrust her hand into her pocket and pulled out her phone, which she threw at the head of the Riddle by the safe door. He gave an incoherent cry of English and binary. A spiderweb of thin fissures of light burst across his shoulder where the phone hit him. He staggered back, clutching at the wound. Hermione took the opportunity to wrench the safe back open all the way and remove the beaker. She was halfway to prying open the lid when something seized her ankle, and one of the Riddles yanked her to the ground. The beaker slipped from her hands and smashed against the counter, sending the serum dripping into the sink and spreading in a puddle across the counter.

"No!" snarled four Riddles in unison, diverted.

Hermione attempted to pull free but another Riddle closed his hands around her throat. He was viciously strong. The blows she pummelled against his head had no effect. Gathering all her strength, Hermione reached up and gripped the handle of the safe door, putting all her weight into dragging it forward. It came toppling off the counter and struck the Riddle with his hands around her neck, who vanished. Unfortunately the safe then fell onto Hermione's left leg with a sickening crunch.

The pain was overpowering. Hermione screamed and flailed. She banged her fist against the counter, knocking a Bunsen burner over and setting it alight. The remains of the ashes from Peverell's paper, sprinkled over the counter, caught fire, and soon the whole countertop was ablaze. The flames lapped hungrily, further and further down towards the other end of the counter where the serum had pooled.

The Riddles were staggering now. The part of them with one foot planted firmly in the realm of existence was dimming. None of their voices were intelligible any longer. Hermione tried to crawl as far from them as she could, but she was trapped underneath the safe.

One of the Riddles screamed. It was a piercing, inhuman sound that tore through Hermione's head like broken glass. A moment later, this first Riddle had dissolved into nothingness.

A heavy chunk of the burning countertop, blackened to charcoal, detached itself and fell, striking Hermione across the face. She dropped her head back against the ground and wailed in pain.

Another of the Riddles popped out of existence.

The world was beginning to darken before Hermione's eyes. She could sense that the injury to her leg was bleeding badly, and the blood loss was making her head fill with fog. Or perhaps this was it. This was the end Prince had predicted for her, a slow unimpressive fading from the world.

She thought of Harry and Ron, always by her side. Their smiles and pranks and solidarity.

She thought of Tom.

_Hermione, don't leave me, don't—_

On the floor where it had skittered, a little to her left, Hermione's phone blinked and hummed.

With her last reserves of strength she picked up the phone and peered blearily at the screen. There was no more movement around her, no more spectral figures circling close. Only the hissing of the flames and the constant darts of pain shooting up her leg. She pressed the button, and Prince's face appeared on the screen.

"If you are receiving this message, then you are near to succeeding in your task," he said emptily. Hermione realized in a distant way that she was hearing a pre-recorded message. Smoke was filling up the room, tarring the walls and ceiling a sooty black and forcing labored coughs from her lungs. "You have done what was required of you. Now, I ask something more."

Why wasn't he here telling her this himself? Did he realize what danger she was in?

"My explanation of the copies of Riddle was a half-truth. The Nightingale is not likely to fade out of existence if they are destroyed. So you must ensure that the young Riddle upholds his end of a deal with me, as I will not be here to do it myself."

Not here? Hermione coughed weakly. The smoke was eroding her ability to think straight.

"In a little under two decades a girl will be born in a north London hospital to parents Daisy and Carlisle Evans. Riddle threatened to prevent her birth if I did not cooperate with him. This cannot happen. She must be allowed to live. You must make sure of it."

Evans? The name sounded familiar. Something about Harry's parents. His mother's maiden name...

"He will find you soon." Was she dreaming, or was there a tremor of fear in Prince's voice? "That is all."

The screen went blank.

Hermione heard a distant knocking, but it was too late. Dark shadows were pressing in on her vision. She closed her eyes and lost all sense of time.

oOo

Tom walked along the path that led to the train station in the village, straight-backed, content. Things were going exactly as they were meant to. Everything would be perfect from here on out.

He felt like utter shit.

No, _no_, that was not—

He entered the pub at the end of the lane where a scraggly man with a lazy eye often sat in the shadows; a man who knew people. To his annoyance, however, the man was not there today. He would have to deal with Prince directly if he wanted to find Hyrcus. There was no question of harming Hermione permanently—she was too valuable—but he needed her detained on an indeterminate basis. Hyrcus had connections who specialized in that sort of thing. Tom produced his leather-bound journal and checked on Prince's tracking chip. And, what the hell? The man was right here in this pub, apparently.

Tom walked up to the front counter and hailed a barman.

"Is Prince upstairs?" he asked.

"Nah," the barman grunted. "Ain't here. But he told me to give you this."

The barman slapped something into Tom's hand: a small metal chip. Tom stared at it for a moment.

Something was very wrong.

Possibilities surged to mind: Prince had double-crossed him and run away with the research; or, impossible thought, Prince had double-crossed him and run away with Hermione. This last possibility made him feel physically ill. He thought he might actually kill someone if he did not get out of here.

Tom turned around and ran out of the pub. He sprinted full tilt down the main road to the broken down shack, through the secret passageway into the lab. His muscles screamed for air. He ignored them.

_You're being ridiculous._

Hermione would not leave him. She wouldn't. Never that.

It was a feeble certainty that did nothing to assuage the panic churning in his stomach. Tom practically hammered down the door to the outer facility. He had to punch the code in three times because he kept getting it wrong. At last he ran inside and saw the window to the laboratory door clouded with black smoke.

Jesus Christ. He could never have imagined fear like this existed: fear not for himself at all, but for someone else. It was worse, deeper, it was _everywhere_.

All hesitation vanished. His vision sharpened, his mind refused access to anything but unilateral determination. He opened the door on the first try and was thrown back against the corridor wall by a scorching burst of heat. The smoke slashed at his lungs, burned his eyes. But it was nothing. Tom forged on into the room. When his vision adjusted he saw two things.

He saw the Ignotus serum pooled on the counter, still enough of it to salvage and scrape into a phial. Flames were dancing towards it, inches away, seconds from consuming and destroying his life's work forever.

And he saw Hermione, unconscious on the floor, trapped beneath the fallen safe.

It was not even a difficult choice. Tom ran past the serum without a second glance and dropped to his knees at Hermione's side. He heaved the safe off her and clutched her face in his hands.

"Wake up," he ordered. It had worked once before. "Open your eyes."

But she was limp in his arms. There was a horrible bleeding gash on her leg and her pulse was sluggish. Her head lolled on his shoulder.

"_Wake up!_" Tom yelled at the top of his voice.

A beam fell from the ceiling and struck his shoulder, but he did not feel it.

She was dying.

He fucking _loved_ her and she was fucking _dying _and he would lose his _fucking_ mind if he did not get her out of here.

Eyes watering in the smoke, he scooped her up in his arms and tore his way out of the room. Debris littered the floor. He nearly tripped twice, and was hit with more falling pieces of the ceiling. The door had banged shut in the draft from the fire, but he kicked it open in an unconscious surge of adrenaline.

A car was waiting for him outside the shack. It was the same black De Soto Prince always ordered for him, with Prince's own keys sitting on the hood. Prince was nowhere in sight. Tom placed Hermione in the backseat and drove back to the school at breakneck speed, skidding onto the front lawn of Slytherin right to the very edge of the building. From there he carried Hermione at a run up to the Infirmary.

Farley was holding Parkinson's hair while she vomited into a pail at the far end of the room.

"_Out!_" Tom roared.

Both girls looked around in alarm and Farley went bone white at the sight of Hermione. Parkinson scuttled out of the room, but Farley immediately began dressing a bed. She approached and attempted to help Tom lay Hermione down on her back with her injured leg elevated.

"Get out," Tom repeated.

"No."

She pressed a cold compress to Hermione's forehead.

"_Get. Out._"

Something in his tone broke Farley's defiance. It always did. She threw him a withering glare as she left the room. Tom busied himself immediately with bandaging Hermione's leg, intermittently checking her pulse.

She was still alive. She was still alive. She was still alive.

He left the compress in place to cool her fever. He kissed her eyelids and willed her to return to consciousness, because he always got what he wanted, and he had never wanted anything as badly as this.

"Oh—Oh goodness me!"

Dippet, Slughorn, and Merrythought had come trooping into the Infirmary, flustered in their nightgowns, gaping in horror at Hermione.

"What on earth happened here, Tom?" asked Dippet in the closest thing to a stern voice Tom had ever heard him use.

"The festivities downstairs weren't to Hermione's taste, so we went to the village for a quieter atmosphere. There was a fire at the old shack, and Hermione saw a little girl inside, so she ran in after her. The girl got out through the backyard, but Hermione got stuck. I had to pull her out." Tom reminded himself vaguely to have Dolohov set a fire, in case anyone checked on his story.

"Well—My, my—Farley sent for us saying that Miss Granger was in quite terrible shape. I expect the nurse will be around shortly. You can go back to your dormitory now, Tom."

"No." There was no room in Tom's head to add a polite _sir_. An entire army could not drag him from Hermione's side.

"Perhaps we ought to let the boy stay, Armando," said Slughorn gently.

"Yes, very well, very well," Dippet stammered.

At length the nurse arrived, the pajama-clad teachers departed, and Tom took a seat at Hermione's side. The moon crept through the sky, and Hermione slept on. The adrenaline from the mishap in the lab was draining out of Tom. Though he watched Hermione attentively, he soon found his eyes closing in spite of him, until he could stay awake no longer. He sagged forward a little in his chair, laid his head against Hermione's limp shoulder, and slept.

When he awoke, she was gone.

oOo

Warm air washed over Hermione as a steam engine sped off. She leaned her head against the back of the bench and watched dawn break over the mostly deserted train station. She kept fiddling with her ticket with nervous fingers, and if she was not careful soon she would shred it to pieces.

She had woken up in the early hours of morning to find Tom's hand clasped in hers, his head resting against her pillow as he slept soundly. She had taken a moment to look at him, to memorize the planes of his face, before slipping away from the Infirmary. She had stolen quietly through the grounds and come upon Romilda, who was holding her shoes in her hand and grinning happily.

"Hermione!" she had squealed, oblivious to Hermione's frantic gestures to quiet down. "Are you just getting in too? Quite the night, wasn't—"

"Romilda, _I need to get out of here_."

Something in her tone must have impressed Romilda as serious, for once, because the grin had slid right off her face. She had frowned.

"There's an old shed behind the Hufflepuff gardens," Romilda had said. "I keep a bicycle there in case I want to meet up with someone in the village. It's unlocked."

Hermione had hugged her briefly in thanks.

"Don't tell anyone where I've gone."

The bicycle ride to the village had been anguish for Hermione's injured leg, but she had made it in time to catch the first train to Manchester. She had put up a fairly good show of crying and told the conductor a half-baked story about being on the run from a jealous boyfriend, and he had let her on board for free.

In Manchester she had sold her watch to a shady man on the platform for enough money to purchase breakfast and a monthly rail pass. From there she had taken several detours, riding from town to town at random for an entire day to throw off anyone who might be pursuing her. Hermione did not truly know whether all this secrecy was necessary. All she knew was that Tom had locked her inside the lab, and she had nearly died, and no matter what she felt that was reason enough to pack it in and look out for herself.

At present she sat in King's Cross station, stomach empty and heart hollow. She had made it to London on the morning of her second day on the run. She thought she could perhaps catch a train to Paris. She knew a little French. She could make a fresh start.

A tall, thin young man with shoulder-length auburn hair sat down on the bench next to hers and opened up a book. Hermione looked over at him and received the shock of her life.

She had seen pictures of Albus Dumbledore in his youth before. Somehow, in real life, he actually looked more impressive than she had expected. His eyes were a rather overwhelmingly piercing blue.

Hermione cleared her throat. Dumbledore looked over with an eyebrow raised in question.

"Er, I'm sorry," she said sheepishly. "But are you Albus Dumbledore?"

"Guilty as charged, Miss—?"

"Granger, sir."

"Granger?" The corners of his mouth turned up in pleased recognition. "Would you happen to be the Miss Granger of whom I have been lately reading in the _Gazette?_"

"Er, yes sir." She was not at all sure that she wanted to be represented by the words of the _Gazette_.

"Slytherin College's first female student!" said Dumbledore in delight. "An honor, Miss Granger. In fact, I was just on my way to Slytherin now at the behest of Headmaster Dippet. I graduated there a few years ago myself, and I believe it may be the intention of the school to establish a connection between Slytherin and Oxford, as a way to ease students into life at University."

"That's—That's lovely, sir."

"Please, call me Albus."

Hermione gaped at him. "I don't think I can," she choked. She could think of nothing so awkward as calling her former Headmaster by his given name.

"You seem a little out of sorts, Miss Granger. Is there anything the matter?"

"A... friend of mine recently passed away," said Hermione, thinking of Prince. Not a friend, necessarily, but one of the bravest people she had ever known. She'd had the time, while sitting endlessly on trains for the past few days and watching the scenery fly along outside her window, to reconstruct what must have happened to him. Prince, too, had been connected to the timeline of the copies of Riddle. Their end had been his end. He'd had just enough time to arrange to leave her a message before vanishing from the world.

"He died to protect someone he cared deeply for, I think," she went on, now thinking of Harry's mother. Her calm, pretty smile and her bright red hair. Memories of Tom threatened to break in. She shut them down quickly and turned away to wipe a tear from her eye.

"Ah, so must we all," said Dumbledore gravely. Then he smiled. "I must say, it is quite a treat to meet you in person, Miss Granger. The rumors of your fascinating disposition have not been exaggerated."

"Rumors?"

"Professor Dippet speaks most highly of you."

"Does he?" she said with rather heavy skepticism.

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "Well, not in so many words. But to the astute ear, a condemnation from certain sources may be taken as a glowing recommendation."

Hermione considered him. There was something indefinable in his countenance that inspired trust. She felt a little better already, just speaking to him.

"In that case," she said, making up her mind on the spur of the moment, "I wonder if I might ask you a favor."

"I imagine that would depend upon the favor," said Dumbledore with a wry smile.

"Well, it won't make much sense now, but I'd like to give you this." Hermione dove into her pocket and produced her phone, which she had miraculously kept clutched in her grip through the fire. "All I ask is that you examine what's inside. Some time in the future it might become... important."

Her phone contained photographs of the lab. It contained voice recordings of her call log with Prince. It contained a few attempts to communicate with Sirius Black, when she had been unable to access her computer. There was enough there to set him on the right track; a track that would someday lead him to recommend her for an internship at MI5, and later to send a message back to her through Prince. With a little luck the phone had enough battery life left to let him look at it all without the charger cord.

Dumbledore took the phone and examined it with keen interest.

"What a curious device," he said cheerfully. "Yes, I suppose I can spare a little time to examine it. I was planning on visiting an uncle of mine in Hazel Grove on the way in, in any case. Ah, I believe that must be my train."

A distant rumbling was heard as a train approached, less than a mile off.

"It's been lovely speaking to you," said Hermione, standing to shake his hand.

"Quite the same to you, Miss Granger."

She bit her lip. "You should consider a career in teaching." She did not know what made her say it. The words simply slipped out. Dumbledore looked amused.

"Indeed?" he said thoughtfully. "Yes, I suppose it would do just as well as a career in government. Those folks do tend to make a lot of themselves, but then again, my uncle Hyrcus got into some rather well publicized trouble about something to do with goats a few years ago, and now he works for the Secret Service. With a man called Prince, I believe. What a world we do live in... Farewell, Miss Granger."

Hermione forced down a garbled noise of shock and waved at him.

When she turned back, Tom was standing behind her.

She had no strength to panic, or run away, or rage at him. She stood and stared, her heart hammering painfully in her chest. She had not thought she would get another chance to look at him. He looked terrible. There were dark circles under his eyes. He was gaunt and unshaven and ghostly pale. She had never seen him looking so humanly breakable before.

"How did you find me?" she asked.

"I've been up looking for you for over forty-eight hours without stopping. Your friend Vane tried very hard to set me a false trail. She told me you'd gone for a nature stroll with Farley in the south end of the woods, so naturally, I went into the opposite direction. Bribed the train station attendant in the village to tell me where you'd gone. And so on."

"I'm going, Tom. Are you really going to try to stop me?"

His face was hard and tense. _Hermione, don't leave me, don't_—

"Well, I think you should reconsider," he said flatly.

"Reconsider? What is this, a business proposal?"

"No one will keep you safe like I will."

"I can keep myself safe."

"No one will understand you like I will. No one will know what you're capable of, what you can do."

"I've lived with that before."

"No one will fucking love you like I will."

All the air left Hermione's lungs.

"You—I can't stand by and watch you engineer serums for immortality and use people and torture your classmates. It's impossible for me."

Tom set his jaw. "Well, then, I'm done with that. The serum is destroyed, anyway. So, I locked you inside my lab. So, you burned it down. Fuck the past. From here on out, we can do whatever we want."

He gripped her shoulders. A rumbling was heard in the distance again as Hermione's train arrived.

"Hermione," he said, looking directly into her eyes in a way he hadn't done before. Looking right at her, and this time it wasn't a lie. "I'm asking you, _please_, stay."

She tried to identify the fireworks explosion going off inside her. It wasn't just happiness, or relief. It was something more. It crashed over her in a tidal wave that washed everything else away, the station and the gust of air from the train and the sun rising over their heads. Hermione ripped up her ticket and leaned her head forward to rest it against Tom's, until the train passed on, without her on board.

* * *

**A/N:** My poor genocidal bby Riddle has some abandonment issues, mkay? Many thanks to **love-warmth-life, AvoidedIsland, Mechanical Orange, heffy, In Memory Of Yesterday, Ella Palladino, XxCupCakeLoverxX, krook, Guest, Jessica, Guest, Anon...**

**1.** Phew. Have I answered most of your questions? I mean, genuinely, I'm curious if I pulled off injecting any degree of sense into this (it's all very clear in my head but that's often no indication of how it comes across). If many of you are still confused, I can try to add more clarity via the epilogue.  
**2.** Speaking of which... No, I'm not going to write an epilogue set nineteen years later and give them babies. I think you guys know me better than that by now.  
**3.** Epigraph from Valentine by Fiona Apple.  
**4.** Anthracycline is a component of chemotherapy. Probably not invented in the 40's. Eh.  
**5.** Help I'm starting to think I wanna write a spinoff series about Romilda Vane.

Cheers!


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